Gundersen Lutheran will start construction on a second parking structure near the hospital this fall.

Jerry Arndt, Gundersen Lutheran senior vice president of business services, said the structure for 500 patient cars will be west of the hospital on the other side of the railroad tracks, and access will be from Seventh Street.
“This is a hospital ramp that is still in design,” Arndt said, saying the new parking structure also could be built underground.

The structure should be completed by the end of next summer, he said. It will be eventually connected to a new critical-care hospital.

Gundersen Lutheran plans to build a new addition for critical care services in the next several years as part of its 25-year master plan. The new critical care hospital will house emergency services, intensive care and surgical care, and will be connected to the clinic and the new parking ramp.

A MedLink Air helicopter pad also likely will be added atop the hospital, Arndt said.

“We are operating in old and tired space, and we need to move into a 21st century space and operational concept to better serve our critically ill patients,” Arndt said.

An employee parking lot located south of the hospital and north of the Gund Brewery Lofts will be paved and landscaped in the next two months.

Arndt talked about other projects in the Gundersen Lutheran system:

Construction of the new La Crescent clinic will be finished by the end of the year.

A clinic in Houston, Minn., will reopen in October. Gundersen Lutheran is opening a clinic previously closed by Franciscan Skemp.

In the hospital, the intensive care unit has been renovated with conversion to private rooms. The hospital lobby also is being renovated.

The sleep laboratory will be expanded in the Founder’s Building.

In the main clinic, the fourth floor is being converted to coordinate general/internal medicine services.

At the Onalaska, Wis., clinic, third and fourth floors were remodeled, with dermatology and rheumatology departments moving to the third floor from the main clinic. That floor also has a surgery clinic. The Women’s Health Center was recently opened on the fourth floor of the Onalaska clinic.

Terry Rindfleisch can be reached at trindfleisch@lacrossetribune.com, or (608) 791-8227.

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