Earth has moved yet again in Falls City.

Community Medical Center Sunday afternoon held a groundbreaking ceremony in a field just north of town that over the course of the next 18 months will steadily grow into a 56,000 square foot medical facility. A $21 million hospital structure perhaps worth much more than that awesome dollar value to this community and the people who live here.

Remarkably, the new CMC represents the fourth major multi-million dollar construction project undertaken in Falls City within the past five years, following Thomas Track & Field inside Jug Brown Stadium, the Library and Arts Center and the Aquatic Center. It could be argued that any one of those is better than another, but the new hospital project, which is privately funded, is by far the biggest and most expensive of the bunch.

Falls City Mayor Rodney Vandeberg, in addressing a large crowd at Sunday’s ceremony, call it “the greatest project which has ever occurred in Falls City.” … A one-story facility providing 24 patient rooms, a state-of-the-art surgery center, private specialty clinics, two delivery rooms with maternity suites and the Family Medicine Clinic will sit on 70 acres of CMC-owned land west of Old Highway 73. A road providing direct access from Highway 73 to the hospital campus will also be constructed. The projected grand opening date will be in November 2009.

A fundraising effort led by Community Medical Center CEO Ryan Larsen has been well-received and so was Sunday’s crowded ceremony. The theme of the event, developed and managed by CMC Marketing and Events Coordinator Linda Santo, featured four “cornerstones upon which we seek to build an enduring legacy of hope and healing.” Each cornerstone featured a specific value-community, knowledge, healing spirit and vision. …

The Falls City hospital was started by St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in 1918 and for many years managed by the Catholic Church. (State Senator Lavon) Heidemann … said people across the state are taking notice of Falls City. “What you’ve accomplished in Falls City not only impresses me, but people all across southeast Nebraska,” Heidemann said. “You’ve developed a ‘can-do’ attitude and that’s what gets things done. I applaud you.”

Source: Falls City Journal, April 22, 2008