photo by: Nick Krug

The LMH Health West Campus is pictured on Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2020.

Plans for a $25 million heart center on LMH Health’s main campus will first require a million dollar remodeling at LMH Health’s West Campus.

In preparing for the renovation of the LMH Health Heart Center next year, the hospital took a key first step by filing plans to renovate part of its west campus to relocate one of its clinics.

LMH filed plans with the City of Lawrence last week to renovate nearly 4,000 square feet at its West Campus location, 6265 Rock Chalk Dr., in order to relocate its endocrinology clinic — the branch of medicine which focuses on hormonal disorders like diabetes or thyroid issues.

Mimi Meredith, a spokesperson for the hospital, told the Journal-World the renovation, which according to plans filed with the city will be about $1.3 million, will convert existing empty space at its west campus to suit the endocrinology clinic.

Meredith said moving the clinic off of LMH Health’s main campus to a new permanent location is a crucial first step to start the construction of the LMH Heart Health Center on the LMH Health main campus near Fourth and Maine streets. The $25 million heart center renovation is expected to start construction in 2026, as the Journal-World reported. The expanded center will increase the number of heart catheterization labs — the high-tech rooms where blockages can be removed, stents added and other similar heart procedures performed — from one to two, improving emergency care scenarios and allowing the hospital to begin offering a wider range of non-emergency heart services.

To prepare for the construction, Meredith said other clinics and departments will have to move to make way for the renovations, with the endocrinology clinic being the “first piece of the puzzle.” Other departments that will need to relocate ahead of the renovation for the Heart Center include: the pulmonology clinic, which will move within the Fourth Street Health Plaza, 1130 W. Fourth St.; the physical therapy services at the main campus, which will combine with existing space at 1112 W. Sixth St. and cardiology, which will be the last to move and be located at the former Reed Medical Group building at 1130 W. Fourth St.

Meredith said as it stands, the hospital hopes the renovation for the endocrinology clinic will be finished at the end of February, with the clinic able to see its first patients at the new location by the end of March, though “a lot of things will have to fall into place” while the various departments and clinics are reshuffled.

While the reshuffling is nothing new for LMH staff — Meredith noted the oncology clinic had to move three times during the renovation of the $11 million expansion of the Cancer Center — it takes a “big staff effort” from all the departments to track all the movement and ensure that each clinic has the required resources to treat its patients.

With the “finite amount of space” and the need to shift the various departments, Meredith compared “the complex and interwoven” process to prepare for construction to being “like a Rubik’s cube.”

“A lot of things have to fall perfectly into place,” Meredith said.

Although there is a lot to be done heading into next year, the expansion of the Heart Center is still expected be under construction by the summer.

“The end result will be fantastic,” Meredith said.