KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. – It’s part school and part hospital, and it may reflect the future of health care.
The $50,000,000 Sky Lakes Collaborative Health Center is the second-largest construction project in Klamath County history.
“The first largest being when Sky Lakes Medical Center was going up,” Tom Hottman of Sky Lakes said. “And it opened in 2007.”
Beverly Culp is an Assistant Superintendent with Walsh Construction. She said, “Total square footage in the building is about 100,000 square feet, and it looks like we have about 140, 142 exam rooms.”
The project is a mix of medical education and treatment between Sky Lakes and Oregon Health Sciences University.
“A perfect combination to get clinicians, and students together in the same space so they can teach, and learn from each other,” Hottman explained.
“The first floor is dedicated to education,” Culp said, “and the top three floors are to see the public.”
Culp adds the project is also a collaboration between multiple contractors. “I think we’ve probably got about 35 to 40 different subcontractors altogether.”
Discussion on the project began in the fall of 2015.
Construction began in April of 2018.
A ribbon-cutting ceremony to mark the opening of the center will be held December sixth.
KOTI-TV NBC2 reporter Lyle Ahrens moved from Nebraska to Klamath Falls in the late 1970’s. He instantly fell in love with the mountains, the trees and the rivers, and never once regretted the move.Lyle’s job history is quite colorful.
He’s managed a pizza parlor; he’s been a bartender, and a “kiwifruit grader” at an organic orchard in New Zealand. A Klamath Falls radio station hired Lyle in the mid 90’s as a news writer and commercial producer. In 2004, Lyle joined the KOTI/KOBI news operation.Lyle notes with pride that he has a big responsibility presenting the Klamath Basin to a wide and varied audience.
“The on-going water crisis has underscored the fact that the people and the issues in the Klamath Basin are every bit as diverse as the terrain. Winning and keeping the trust of the viewers, as well as the newsmakers, is something I strive for with each story”.
When he’s not busy reporting the news, Lyle enjoys astronomy, playing guitar, fixing old radios and listening to anything by Sheryl Crow.
