The Choctaw County Board of Supervisors is in the conception phase of the new nursing home project. Earlier this year, the board approved moving forward with the build of the new facility and chose JBMH Architecture for the project during their June recessed meeting.
Bill Whittle with JBHM Architecture said he looks forward to sitting down with hospital administration and stakeholders to talk about their needs and the services JBHM offers in general.
“We want to talk about the vision and do a diagram and review those. And we can do presentations of the general layout if you’d like.”
Supervisors then chose Marty Crowder to be the engineer for the project. Crowder Engineering will also do the surveying for the project. Whittle said he could give recommendations for geo-tracking work that needed to be done.
Whittle said that JBHM officials would be on site of the project once a week, and there would be offline meetings to talk about updates.
Supervisor Greg Fondren asked about the fee. Whittle said it was all spelled out in the contract. He then went over the contract – not in detail – with supervisors and hospital officials.
He said JBHM could even help with the interior design of the nursing home.
Whittle asked if the new nursing home could be a connector to the current hospital or if it would need major modifications. But, he said that could be decided when they began talking about the design of the nursing home.
Whittle said JBHM could even help with the food services for the new facility.
He said once those details are ironed out, the project could be opened up for the bid process, and they would oversee the construction administration.
“It’s all negotiations at this point,” he said.
Supervisor Chris McIntire said that he would love to see the parking for the facility be concrete to tie into the concrete that was already there, so little resurfacing has to be done to the existing drive of the hospital, which is asphalt.
McIntire also said he wanted everyone to be pleased with the work.
“I don’t want us to build it and then years later we go, well this wasn’t done right, well we should’ve done this,” he said.
“We’re ready to get the ball rolling,” Board President Joey Stephenson said.
Also, Crowder told the board that the concurrent for the Fentress-Panhandle bridge has been completed, and they are now moving into finishing up all construction paperwork.
After which, construction on the long-awaited bridge could begin.
