Centura expansion in north adds to hospital build-merge frenzy

Font ResizeBusinessBy Michael Booth
The Denver Post denverpost.comPosted: 12/15/2012 12:01:00 AM MST

Centura Health will add 92 flexible-space beds to its burgeoning far-north campus in Westminster, adding to the hospital system's beds in the north metro area and thrusting the growing chain into the health-care building frenzy in northern Colorado.

Centura announced Friday it will spend $177 million beginning this spring to expand its just-opened St. Anthony North Medical Pavilion at 144th Avenue and Interstate 25.

The addition will include 60,000 square feet of physician clinic space as Centura furthers the national movement of hiring more doctors in-house; outpatient-treatment rooms, day surgery, women's delivery- and baby-care rooms; a Level III trauma center with ER; and 92 inpatient beds in a flexible configuration.

St. Anthony's original north hospital at 84th and Zuni has 122 beds.

Centura says it is building the new space to emphasize an integrated, patient-centered approach with a continuity of care, a model both public and private health organizations are moving toward. Centura said the $177 million cost will be funded through bonds sold by Catholic Health Initiatives, co-owner of the Centura hospitals in Colorado with the Adventist Health System.

Centura is also expanding its network to metro south, building the first full-service hospital for Castle Rock. That 50-bed, $128 million hospital is expected to open in 2013.

Health-care construction and hospital-group mergers have been some of the most active economic sectors for Colorado in recent years. Exempla St. Joseph is rebuilding its central Denver hospital in a massive $630 million project that includes relocating city streets. St. Anthony Central moved its West Colfax facility to a new building overlooking Lakewood.

In northern Colorado, where Centura's new facility will chew at the edges, Banner Health and Poudre Valley Health, now part of the University of Colorado Health system, are also competing hard for patients.

Those systems are vying with new-construction, stand-alone ERs in each other's backyards, and purchases of physician practices from Fort Collins to Greeley to Loveland.

A Centura spokesman said the new project is in line with recent trends of hospital staff physicians and adding beds, but the added space provides a chance to practice medicine differently.

"Putting primary care, specialists, lab, imaging and other services together in a single location, along with acute care and inpatient services, is going to make a big difference both in terms of convenience and coordination of care," Centura's Andrew Wineke said.

Michael Booth: 303-954-1686, mbooth

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