Submitted by SVHC
Loads of insulation, doors, lighting fixtures, pressure treated lumber, wooden beams and an antique cast iron sink are among the items being harvested for reuse from The Lodge, a building on the Bennington campus of Southwestern Vermont Medical Center (SVMC), part of Southwestern Vermont Health Care (SVHC). The building is slated for demolition next week to make way for a $28 million renovation and expansion to SVMC’s Emergency Department.
The salvage work was done by Deconstruction Works, a demolition, salvage and recycling service based in Vermont. The business has offices in Brattleboro and Bristol and is co-owned by Erich Kruger and Tom Shea. The company lists items for sale on its Facebook page and on other online sites.
Pushing much of the construction waste to reuse, rather than the landfill, helps the health system meet the State’s requirements for managing solid waste. It also helps mitigate the emotional impact of losing a piece of the health system’s history.
The Lodge was built in 1925. It had 22 rooms for its original purpose of housing laundry and housekeeping employees. Most recently, it had been used as offices for SVHC’s Finance Department.
The construction project will nearly double the size of the current Emergency Department, which was designed to accommodate 14,000 patient visits per year but currently sees nearly 25,000 annually. The project also includes an expansion to the Emergency Crisis Area for those experiencing mental health distress and increased telehealth connectivity with Dartmouth-Hitchcock.
Temporary parking changes are in effect to make way for site preparation work. See the map at https://svhealthcare.org/patients-visitors/parking for details. Regular updates on the project will appear in SVHC’s weekly e-newsletter, on social media and on the health system’s website, svhealthcare.org.