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The new facility would enable the hospital on a daily basis to serve patients who require the high-tech scanning to help doctors diagnose and monitor a medical condition. It currently has a mobile MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) unit, located in a trailer adjacent to the west side of the building, which is in use five days a week.
The town's Zoning Commission has approved a site plan modification application Feb. 24, after the hospital agreed to some changes to the original proposal for the addition.
According to the application, which was prepared by Sevigny/Architects of Hartford, the $2.8 million proposed facility would be within the building boundaries that were approved by the commission in 1997, when application was made for the hospital's cancer center. The hospital's architects are now preparing plans for the addition, which would include the location of the MRI unit within the new facility.
According to the approved proposal, the addition, which would be 23 feet in height and have a 2,440-square-foot footprint, would add 4,880 square feet to the medical facility, which has a current footprint of 61,321 feet. It would be located nearly midway on the north side of the building, where there is currently a grassy tract in front of a back entrance.
The façade will be brick, to fit in with the existing structure.
The commission wanted the separate entrance to the addition eliminated. This was the major change in the proposal.
Patients will enter through the hospital's front door and then go through an interior door to the MRI unit.
According to the minutes of the zoners' Feb. 10 meeting, "The placement of the building is the same except for an interior staircase to an outside egress ... [which] will have an area of refuge that is rated for two hours of safety during a fire." The proposal for an outside canopy is gone and there will not be an outside ramp. Because the existing driveway will not change, there is no need for a retaining wall to be constructed.
