Shreveport Hospitals Building Into Medical Centers

              News of The Times
THE SHREVEPORT TIMES Sunday, April 21, 1974
Section
C
Page One
Metro News
Area News
Classified
Shreveport Hospitals Building Into Medical Centers
A $14 Million Addition to Schumpert Memorial Hospital
. . . one part will be completed by the end of the yean
By Margaret Martin
Times Medical Writer
Work is - almost complete on one
hospital office building, while skeletons
of two more medical facilities are
looming on the skyline in different sec-tions
of the city
The total cost for the three projects is
$46.6 million
The facilities are the Louisiana State
University Medical School at Shreveport,
the Diagnostic and Surgical Building ot
Willis Knighton Medical Center and an
addition and remodeling of existing
building at Schumpert Memorial
Hospital
The $30.5 million LSU Medical School
at Shreveport building is being construc-ted
on Kings Highway between Con-federate
Memorial Medical Center and
the Confederate • Northwestern State
University School of Nursing Construc-tion
is on schedule according to Claude
Franklin, project architect for As-sociated
Medical School Architects
Dr Clifford G Grulee Jr . dean of the
school, has said that the school will open
in the fall of 1975
The facility will have 550.000 gross
square feet and will include five
buildings, with an 11 - story, ediface
dominating the complex It is the largest
building in North Louisiana
Being constructed at a total cost of
$14 million is a complex of buildings ad-jacent
to Schumpert Memorial Hospital,
according to Robert DeBacker, associate
administrator
The series includes a new main lobby
(the old lobby will become a patient
discharge center); a new laboratory,
cancer treatment and diagnostic center;
nuclear medicine; trauma center and
outpatient surgery; pulmonary
laboratory inhalation therapy center;
neurology and cardiology section, out-patient
lobby and drive.
The complex also includes a nursing
tower with 192 private rooms.
DeBacker said that the diagnostic and
treatment center should be completed by
the end of this year, and the first two
floors of the tower should be ready in
about a year.
Occupants will start moving by early
summer into the $2 1 million five - story
Diagnostic and Surgery Building of Wil-lis
- Knighton Memorial Hospital, accor-ding
to officials at the hospital.
The facility at 2751 Virginia is being
built and will be owned and operated by
Willis - Knighton, according to James K
Elrod, administrator
The 50,000 square foot building will
provide office space for some 40
physicians
It will be connected to the hospital by
a tunnel under Virginia Avenue.
It will provide a complete medical
complex, which, through shared ser-vices,
such as laboratory, pharmacy and
x - ray equipment, will "provide full
health care capabilities as conveniently
as possible for patient needs," Elrod
said
(Times Photos bv Billv Upshaw)
Diagnostic and Surgical Building at Willis-Knighton
. . . $2.1 million facility ready in summer
Louisiana State University Medical School at Shreveport
. . . students and faculty scheduled to be in by 1975