After four years of planning, the $200 million reconstruction of the Henderson General Hospital in Stoney Creek, Ontario, Canada will take a big step forward this spring when demolition crews descend on the Concession Street building.

Cathy Lovett, site lead for the Henderson re-development project for Hamilton Health Sciences, said demolition of the south section of 70 wing will begin in March or April and take about six months to complete.

Located to the right of the main entrance, the south side of the wing juts out toward Concession Street.

The demolition will make way for a 425,000 square-foot L-shaped building expected to go up in the next three years starting in the late fall.

The new building will stretch east-west along Concession Street and north-south along the Sherman Cut.

The new five-storey building will feature 250 beds, 90 of which will be for cancer, hematology and palliative care patients. Two- thirds of those beds will be in private rooms.

About 38 hospital units will be moved into the building, including emergency, orthopedics, diagnostic imaging, endoscopy and ambulatory care services, as well as nine operating rooms, 14 intensive care beds and 13 coronary care beds.

There will also be four meeting rooms and a boardroom on four stories. The fifth story will house the hospital's mechanical and electrical plants.

With the construction, the 127-spot parking lot on the east side of the hospital will be lost, but Ms. Lovett said there is ample space s across the street and along Poplar Avenue.

Once construction (phase 1a) is completed and hospital services have been shifted to the new building, Ms. Lovett said work will begin on phase 1b of the reconstruction that will see the north side of the 70 wing and 80 wing torn down and replaced by four floors of office and hospital support space, including a new front lobby, which will connect to the Juravinski Cancer Centre and a healing garden is planned for the second floor.

The province is paying about 70 per cent of the cost of the reconstruction with the remainder coming from HHS fundraising.

Phase two is expected to take a year and once complete the approximately 14 acre site will be known as the Juravinski Hospital and Cancer Centre in recognition of the multi-million dollar gifts to Hamilton Health Sciences from Margaret and Charles Juravinski.