The cost of remediating mold at the Medical Arts Building will be nearly 10 times less than expected.
The Allen County Regional Hospital facilities board approved a bid by a local cleaning contractor to address the mold for about $9,411.39.
Initial estimates indicated it could cost up to $80,000.
The county and Saint Luke’s officials want to remodel the county-owned building at 825 E. Madison St. and move a health clinic there. The clinic is currently at 401 S. Washington. With the current location’s lease expiring in 2022, officials decided to relocate rather than invest in needed updates in a building they do not own.
As for the Medical Arts Building, its basement has flooded several times since it opened in 1976, though no plans are in the works to address that predicament.
In recent inspections of the building, mold spores and fungus were discovered in the basement, including in boxes of old medical records.
As officials attempted to move the hundreds of boxes of records into storage so the mold could be remediated, they discovered the problem was not as severe as they initially feared.
And as for the boxes of records, most will be kept in the basement, after all.
“A lot has changed in the last month,” Terry Sparks, chairman of the hospital facilities committee, told the group on Tuesday evening.
The Allen Community College soccer team on Friday helped clean out the basement, hauling away the old furniture and what boxes could be thrown out. The records, which include financial records and some patient information, must be kept for a period of time for legal reasons.
A closer review of the report indicated the worst concentrations of mold were not much worse than what could be found outdoors, Sparks said.
The basement should be safe after a thorough cleaning by All Clean LLC of Iola, which will also apply chemical treatments to kill any remaining mold spores, he said. The process also will clean air ducts.
After the area is cleaned and treated, it will be tested again.
THE NEXT step is to remodel part of the building for use as a health clinic.
Again, the facilities committee members learned of potential hiccups to that process.
