A key health facility serving northern Maine will soon triple in size, allowing it to hire more providers to meet the demand for primary care in the Upper St. John Valley.
Fish River Rural Health is on track to move its Madawaska Community Health Center into a significantly larger new building later this year, with roughly 30,000 square feet compared to the 9,000 square feet it is currently leasing.
The expansion will help the organization meet the region’s demand for medical, dental, behavioral and mental health services. It has additional facilities in Fort Kent and Eagle Lake, and as a federally qualified health center, it offers services on a sliding fee scale to ensure they’re affordable for people at different income levels.
Fish River Rural Health recently added about 15 new jobs in the current Madawaska space, and it has plans to hire an additional 15 once the new one opens. The new positions will allow for an expansion of services for more patients.
Fish River CEO Heather Pelletier said the roughly $14 million project is on track to be finished by this fall. It’s being led by Devoe Construction, the same contractor that built Fish River’s expanded Bolduc Avenue Health Center in Fort Kent in 2018.
“We’ve worked with this construction crew on other projects,” Pelletier said, “and we’ve never fallen behind.”
Pelletier said that Devoe Construction had a 24-month window to complete the Bolduc expansion, and ended up wrapping up the work in 18 months.
If work continues at its current pace, she said the project should be finished by September, or October at the latest.
Currently all the building’s exterior work, with the exception of the siding, is complete.
“They’re actually starting to mud the rooms and get them ready for primer already,” Pelletier said.
The work currently taking place includes electrical and HVAC, some of which took place earlier this week. Pelletier said electricians and plumbers were in the building working on the project, installing materials for bathrooms.
“It’s rolling along,” Pelletier said. “It was impressive to witness.”
She said the crew was fairly large, and that there are roughly 20 crew members on the site each day.
“I have a fantastic hygienist looking for another hygienist to join because she’s busy and needs another hygienist in the office,” she said. “And I think the dentist is looking forward to that, too. Then we have an optometrist who certainly could use some help, because we have a waiting list.”
Once the electrical, plumbing and drywall work is complete, contractors will install flooring and paint the walls.
Pelletier said a grand opening date has not yet been set, but an announcement will likely be made at some point this spring.
“We’re getting real close to being able to pick the grand opening date and inviting the community in to do a full walk through,” she said.
