OHH to break ground in March
Construction crews will begin “mobilizing” to build Olney’s new hospital in mid-March with the goal of completing the new facility on West Hamilton Street in September 2026, project manager Dave Lilly told the Olney Hamilton Hospital board of directors at its Nov. 22 meeting.
The City closed part of Avenue L permanently on Dec. 2 to make way for the new hospital, which will be built over that roadway across from the existing facility.
Mr. Lilly of Trinity Hughes Construction in Wichita Falls told the board that the design “is about 85 percent [complete] and we have moved into construction documents … that is the last of the three phases of design.”
Trinity Hughes and the architects, Guide Architecture of Dallas, planned a Dec. 3 meet- ing with OHH staff to place electrical and data outlets and furniture in the plans, he said.
Trinity Hughes intends to release the completed hospital plans on Feb. 1 to subcontractors who will begin mobilizing “around March 10 or March 15,” he said. “You don’t really see a lot of activity … all of this will come very very quickly. The timeline runs very rapidly.”
He said that the architects and contractor have not started purchasing materials and equipment but will do so as soon as the subcontracts are awarded.
“We made the active choice not to engage in any pre-procurement. We thought the risk associated with that exceeded the reward,” he said. “But the moment that those subcontracts begin to be bought we will insist that whether it’s HVAC or mechanical equipment [we will] begin the process of procurement.”
The firm estimates that construction will last 22 months from mobilization of the subcontractors. He said the design firm has been able to cut about $100,000 from the new hospital’s $27-million budget.
Voters in Young County and the parts of Archer County that fall within the hospital taxing district voted in November of 2023 to issue $33 million in general obligation bonds to fund the new hospital. The OHH board has issued one tranche of $27 million because of uncertainty over the status of a hydrogen plant whose taxes would fund the additional $6 million cost of the hospital. Because of higher construction and materials costs as well as the shrunken budget, the hospital board announced in June that it was cutting obstetrics services from the new hospital and reducing the size of the footprint. The new facility will feature 16 beds across 10 rooms, designed to allow flexibility during high patient loads.
Hospital administrators say the old facility, built in 1964, is rapidly approaching obsolescence and soon may not pass inspections required by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid.
OHH Administrator Michael Huff also announced that the hospital was named one of the top performing rural hospitals by The Chartis Center for Rural Health.