MANKATO — The Mankato Surgery Center, which offers a wide range of outpatient surgical procedures, is planning to expand by 70% to meet growing patient demand.
The expansion plan, assuming it clears city reviews and permitting, could be under construction later this year with new operating rooms in use before the end of 2027.
The surgery center was created in 2002 as a joint venture by the Mankato Clinic and the Orthopaedic & Fracture Clinic, serving as an alternative to Mankato’s Mayo Clinic-owned hospital for surgeries that don’t require post-operative hospitalization.
The creation of the facility was timely, according to Garret Hilgendorf, administrator of the Surgery Center.
“The trend in health care of shifting to outpatient settings is real,” he said.
The facility, located on the Wickersham Health Campus on Mankato’s northeast side, was built as a 15,000 square foot facility and expanded in 2014 to 20,000 square feet, according to Blue Earth County tax records. The center now has an assessed value of $3.9 million.
“We’ve been the largest freestanding surgery center in the region,” Hilgendorf said.
But it’s no longer large enough.
“We’re at the point where the current facility doesn’t meet the demand from the patient-care perspective,” he said.
Designs provided to the city show the bulk of the work being done on the west side of the existing center, with an expansion that will add two new operating rooms to the four already in place. While the ORs are where the most intensive medical procedures occur, much more space is needed for the numerous rooms where patients are prepared for surgery and where they spend post-operative recovery time.
Half of the existing surgery center is also slated for a remodeling project “to modernize existing areas to improve overall patient experience and functionality, as well as bring the facility in line with the currently understood best practices,” according to summary of the proposal by city staff.
Finally, the project would add parking spaces on the western edge of the property, with the stalls replacing a frontage road that the application suggests became redundant when nearby Premier Drive was extended several years ago.
The hope is to begin work this fall.
“It’ll be approximately a 13-month project,” said Hilgendorf, expressing confidence that the increased capacity will be put to good use. “We provide very personalized patient care — with a 96-98% patient satisfaction rate — using community-based surgeons.”
Mankato Clinic, founded in 1916, characterizes itself as an independent locally-owned, physician-led organization of 200 doctors and practitioners. The Orthopaedic & Fracture Clinic — also an independent, physician-owned organization — was founded in 1957 and has satellite locations in six southern Minnesota cities in addition to its primary clinic at Wickersham.