Officials at Swedish Medical Center are pressing forward with plans to build a new hospital in the Issaquah Highlands, and are in the midst of the design phase, which means planning everything from where a doorframe will go, to what departments will be on what floors.

“It’s really a schematic design process now,” said Project Manager Susan Gillespie. “We need to identify how the rooms are going to shape up, how tall the ceilings are going to be … it’s been interesting to understand what it means to build on a site where we don’t have anything.”

The 175-bed hospital will be built on a 12.5 acre plot along Northeast Blakely Drive. Currently, the site is an empty patch of land.

The project has been in the works for several years, since officials began the master planning phase in 2007. In late January of this year, officials gave community members a detailed look at the finished report during a City Council meeting.

When finished, the six-story hospital will house a variety of in-and-outpatient services, such as oncology, cardiac care, and neurosciences, among others.

An entire floor will also be dedicated to the Swedish Cancer Institute.

Some small changes have been made since the design phase began, but most of those focus on moving departments to different floors and identifying exactly where on the site the building will be constructed, Gillespie said. Changes at this stage are expected because officials can see the project take shape and determine what will serve patients best, she said.

Communications with the contractor have gone well, and she said they’ve received solid estimates on the project timeline and cost.

“Which is extremely nice in this market,” she said.

However, the groundbreaking date may be pushed back, she said. Originally, officials planned to begin construction in June, but are considering waiting until September for a variety of reasons, such as the weather, and an attempt to coincide the ceremony with Salmon Days.

“We’ll probably have our best weather in September, and that’s closer to the time when we’ll actually begin pouring foundation, so it just makes more sense,” Gillespie said. “And it does give us a little more time to design our facilities.”

Pushing back the groundbreaking date doesn’t affect the project completion date, however. The hospital will be built in two phases — the first installation will be done in fall 2010, and the second in early 2012.

In the meantime, Gillespie said the project is progressing smoothly, and that officials are excited about the progress that’s been made.

“It’s pretty much the perfect site,” she said. “I don’t foresee us having any issues; all the land assessments have been done, there are no wetlands … we don’t even have a single tree on our site.”

Swedish Medical Center Media-Relations Manager Ed Boyle said the hospital will be issuing an updated press release regarding progress made and any changes in plans in May. Renderings of what the building will look like will also be released at that time.

For more information about the new hospital, go to www.swedishissaquah.org.