Banner Gateway Medical Center makes a striking impression on motorists approaching Higley Road on U.S. 60. Construction on the $200 million hospital in east Mesa is slated for completion in mid-to late August.
Also along the U.S. 60, the completion next week of a 1,250-space parking garage at Banner Desert Medical Center will allow employees of the west Mesa hospital to resume on-campus parking.
The parking garage is part of a $305 million expansion that will include the new Banner Children’s Hospital and other additions.
Banner Gateway will open with 167 beds and eventually grow to more than 500 beds in two more patient towers.
“The exteriors are pretty much done,” said Susan Gordon, Banner Gateway’s director of public relations. “There is a lot of work going on inside this facility, a lot of walls have been dry walled and painted.”
This summer, most of the equipment and furnishings will be installed, she said.
“We’ll have more than 90 computer software programs that will all integrate with each other to create electronic records and communications capabilities,” Gordon said. “We’ll have electronic medical records and the whole hospital will be electronic.”
Banner Gateway will replace Banner Mesa Medical Center in north Mesa, and most of that hospital’s staff will be moved to the new hospital, she said.
“We are in the process now of finalizing who’s going over there and what positions we will still have open,” Gordon said. “Once we know that, then if we have additional positions we will begin to recruit for them. But the core of our staff we already have.”
At Banner Desert, the garage solves a parking shortage by giving visitors, patients and staff plenty of parking, said Jay Stallings, the hospital’s associate administrator.
“Also, we’ve just completed our cardiac catheterization recovery unit and we have 12 new, private recovery beds in there,” he said.
“We’re making a lot of internal moves in preparation for the continuing expansion.”
A larger loading dock is under construction, and its completion is critical because the existing dock is in the pathway of the children’s hospital tower and other expansion.
The project also includes expanding the emergency department, neonatal intensive care unit, the pharmacy, materials management, central plant, support services and kitchen; and adding 15 new operating rooms.
