Dec. 4 -- NEOSHO, Mo. -- Officials with Freeman Neosho Hospital gathered Wednesday to break ground on a new physical therapy building on the hospital campus.
Renee Denton, chief operating officer for Freeman Neosho Hospital, said the 8,300-square-foot building will house physical, occupational and speech therapy departments and state-of-the-art technology, including an aquatic therapy pool and strength training equipment. It will also feature five private treatment rooms and a gymnasium.
"We're very excited about this project because we're going to be able to have this located in downtown Neosho directly behind the hospital," Denton said. "We think this will be a huge convenience for our patients, and we'll be able to treat them locally. We're hopeful that many more patients who have those elective surgeries and also have a sudden need for those services come up will be able to remain right here at home to have care."
Denton said the hospital's physical therapy office is now housed in an area that's not large enough to accommodate some of the new technology the hospital wants to introduce in Neosho.
"That facility is so very small that we do not have much room in there at all to be able to utilize the Kaiser equipment that we're going to be using," Denton said. "We also will have in our new structure a HydroWorx pool that will allow us to do aquatherapy with patients. The HydroWorx pool is a one-person pool and that allows the therapist to work right with the patients in that pool area. That will be something new that we're able to do here with the extra space. We think the higher visibility, the location and the much larger footprint and the state-of-the-art equipment that we're going to be placing will all be huge benefits to our community."
Denton said the building is expected to cost about $3.6 million. Construction will begin next week and completion is slated for September 2025.
The building will be built on a vacant lot behind Freeman Neosho's helipad and face West McKinney and South Wood streets.
Denton said Millard Architects from Joplin designed the building and construction will be handled by Marion CSG, based in Neosho.
"It is because of the commitment from our hospital board of directors and their desire to be certain we have services available in our community that this is being made possible," Denton said. "They are working on some fundraising for this, and we're very, very thankful that has occurred because it's going to allow us to bring this dream that has been in the works for about the last 13 years to fruition. We're very excited about it, and we're thankful for their support."