Hamilton Hospital Director of Nursing Deb Thielen, Financial Officer Alice Heinrichs, Administrator Palmer Schneider and Public Relations Coordinator Lori Foster stand in the mock hospital room constructed in a garage to show the size and orientation of rooms in the new hospital building.

Hamilton Hospital staff, architects, designers and planners have been working hard to develop a plan for new hospital building since it was learned in February that local residents Bob and Mary Van Diest would donate $10 million toward the construction of a new hospital. According to Palmer Schneider, the design phase is nearly complete and the architects and engineers will next move onto the construction documentation. Schneider said he believed that the groundbreaking would take place before the first of the year, possibly in late fall. That's a good thing, because the donation from the Van Diests carried a requirement that construction begin within a year of the donation, Schneider added. That stipulation kicked the project into high gear and Schneider said the hospital staff and the architects have done in six months what most building projects of this size take 18 months to complete.