Contracts for the redevelopment of the new hospital will be signed next month.

And construction at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital is expected to begin as early as December.

The Bermuda Hospitals Board (BHB) and Paget Health Services shared plans for the new Paget facility at a meeting at the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute yesterday afternoon.

They said a contract formalising the agreement would be signed in November with a completion date of spring 2014.

The building has a projected cost of $315 million and will be housed on the current hospital site.

It will be fitted with an atrium and offer oncology, dialysis and diabetes services and have 90 single patient rooms.

The facility will be designed, built, financed and maintained for the next 30 years by Paget Health Services.

Alan Austick, of Paget Health Services, said the three main companies — Sir Robert McAlpine Ltd., BCM McAlpine Ltd. and Black & McDonald— are all family-owned companies which fit into the Bermudian way of life.

He said the plans are in the Planning Department which can be viewed by the public at any time.

"We are hoping to be (in a) contract with the BHB by the end of November and we look to start work by the turn of the year. The first patient users will be in there with the hospital fully equipped by the spring of 2014.

"After we build the building, we look after it as far as the hard maintenance for 30 years.

Mr. Austick also praised the BHB for doing an "incredible" job in the selection process citing it as very fair.

Keith Milay, one of the architects for the project explained the clinical side.

"What we're sharing with people is trying to describe the development from a clinical standpoint and you could describe a hospital as a machine for health care.

"The approach is that a hospital needs to be more than that. It needs to provide healing for the staff to work and for the patients to live."

Mr. Milay said the heart of the concept is an atrium which is the middle of the new building bringing in a lot of light.

The building will see a garden on the third floor patio and artwork by Masterworks displayed throughout.

"Masterworks will get involved with the design of the building. We're looking to get placement of artwork so that the building is very much alive and so that artwork is part of the patients' experience", Mr. Milay said.

The new site will also have more parking for cars and bikes, views to the Botanical Gardens and Hungary Bay and a healing garden.

Paul Tracey, another architect, spoke about the architectural side of the project.

He said the team looked at Bermudian architecture to create a design that would fit in with Bermudian buildings.

"We think the approach is a fairly unique one. We have architecturally and clinically to fuse those two to create an integrated and compacted design solution where both disciplines are complimentary to the proposal."

As for the colours of the building, the team looked at a Jobson's Cove and converted the image to a colour chart using blues, turquoises, greens and beige to create a colour palette.

"Rather than create this large institutional hospital, you create these small clusters that people feel more intimate about. We think it's going to be a very important, dynamic space", he added.

The building will be around 170 feet tall, some 45 feet shorter than planning allowed the building to be.

The public are invited to view the exhibition at the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute today.

Presentations on the project will take place at 2.30 and 4.30 p.m.

l For more information, visit www.pagethealthservices.com.