RANGELY I Groundbreaking ceremonies for the new Rangely District Hospital (RDH) are scheduled for Sept. 16, and construction of the $36 million facility will begin Sept. 19.“We are excited and I think the people in town are going to be excited too,” Nick Goshe, CEO for RDH said.Rangely district voters approved a bond to construct a new hospital in 2010 after a series of more than 20 town hall meetings to educate the taxpayers on the need for a new facility. According to Goshe, “it has been a long year.”“We’ve spent the last year working on financing,” Goshe said. Goshe said RDH worked with George K. Baum and Company to take the bonds to market after receiving a “BAA1 Investment grade” rating from Moody’s.“We sold $36,200,000 in bonds at 5.15 percent interest for 15 years, so the total cost to the taxpayers will be $53,500,000 and we will finish them nine years early,” Goshe said.Goshe said the district has hired Adolfson and Peterson Construction, with offices in Steamboat Springs and Denver, as the contractors.“They’ve done a lot of work on the western slope,” Goshe said, which included building the new Colorado Northwestern Community College campus in Craig.“They are the third most regulated facility to construct, behind nuclear power plants and chemical waste facilities,” Goshe said of hospitals.Goshe said they would have a construction work schedule this week for the 15-month project and believes the construction will help the local economy for the next two years.“We’ll have an estimated 41 additional workers a day in town for the next 24 months and peak at more than 100,” Goshe said. “I think that will help the local restaurants, motels and businesses.”The groundbreaking ceremony is scheduled for 11 a.m. on Sept. 16, at the construction site, a 20 acre parcel acquired from the Bureau of Land Management, just across the street from the current hospital location.
