Construction crews are getting closer every day to wrapping up steel work on the new Altru Hospital project in Grand Forks.
After breaking ground in June 2019 the construction was paused during the COVID pandemic. Altru CEO Todd Forkel says a rough guess now puts the project at about 25% completed. “We are going to do a cap-off ceremony in early September. The steel structure that you see driving down Columbia…the physical landscape changing…the steel structure will be complete.”
Forkel says the seven floor design of the building hasn’t really changed over time – and allows for future growth as needed. “Six complete floors with two half floors for expansion and growth which was in the original plan. It allows us to expand bed capacity and also to expand on the technology side of things.”
One thing that has changed is the cost. Forkel says Altru is not immune to the price spikes hitting the construction industry. “We’ve had a few supply chain disruptions but a little less on that side and probably a little more from the inflation side. Right now we originally targeted this to be in the $400 million dollar range and we’re definitely going to be 10-15% higher.”
The 226 bed hospital is on schedule to open in the fall of 2024.
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