Lawrence Memorial Hospital

Patrons and neighbors of Lawrence Memorial Hospital may have noticed some construction activity — and a few missing parking spaces — near the facility’s front entrance in recent days.

All that extra noise will soon be over, assures LMH spokeswoman Janice Early, who told the Journal-World on Wednesday that crews have been working to repair the foundation of the sidewalk near the hospital entrance since last week.

And, while adjacent handicapped parking spaces have been moved to a more central location as a result of the construction, they’ll be back soon — and with five additional spaces in tow.

“That’s an ongoing problem we have,” Early, the hospital’s vice president of marketing and communications, said of LMH’s limited parking space.

It’s a problem that she said has been amplified in recent years by continuing growth at the hospital, 325 Maine St. Currently, 76 percent of the hospital’s revenue is generated by outpatient services, meaning the majority of LMH clients are traveling in and out of the hospital’s parking lots on a more frequent basis than those receiving inpatient care, who by definition stay at the hospital longer and ostensibly use parking lots less.

All of this, Early said, “brings more traffic and parking and people,” including the addition of more hospital staff, who also need to park their cars somewhere near the hospital’s “landlocked” residential location.

To that end, LMH has hired a parking consultant. And the plan, so far, entails approximately 55 extra parking spaces to be added early next year.

“We are looking at, creatively, how can we address the limited space? Some of what has been proposed is to create some additional angled parking possibly on Arkansas Street, possibly on Maine Street,” Early said. “If you can gain four spaces here and five spaces there and ten spaces there, every little bit helps.”

The five (mostly handicapped) spaces near the hospital’s front entrance will be installed by Sunday, she said, with the next phase of construction set to begin early next year, most likely in the spring. The 55 new parking spaces, which will cost LMH an estimated $175,000, are included in the hospital’s overall $14 million 2017 capital budget.

The budget, approved by the LMH board of trustees on Wednesday, also calls for $140,000 to be set aside for parking lot resurfacing in the two lots between the hospital and Arkansas Street. Other improvements include the addition of two surgical suites ($2 million), a $600,000 expansion of LMH’s Tonganoxie clinic and $400,000 in renovations to the hospital’s 3 North facility.