Bangor hospital cleared for major expansion

The project will update surgery, cardiac, and women and infants services and expand bed capacity from 350 to 411.

The hospital's operating rooms, built more than 35 years ago, will be updated to support modern technology.

Hospital CEO and president Deborah Carey Johnson says the project is critical to the future of health care in central and northern Maine because EMMC serves more than 40 percent of the state's population as the only provider of many specialty medical services.

The hospital hopes to have financing lined up by the end of the year and begin work in April. The goal is to complete the project by 2017.