CASPER, Wyo. — Construction is progressing on the new Casper-Natrona County Health Department building, with work on the foundation nearly complete.

According to project designer Brandon Daigle of MOA Architecture, work on the foundation walls is roughly 90% done. Crews have also been busy with dirt work, construction on the necessary retaining wall, movement of utilities underground and more.

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An aerial shot of the current construction site for the future Casper-Natrona County Health Department facility. (Submitted Photo)

“One of the main things we started with was all the earth work,” Sampson Construction superintendent Justin Birt said. “That took about eight weeks. From there, we were able to get started moving the utilities and a lot of the other work that needed to get done.”

After crews finish the work on the building’s foundation and the surrounding land, they will begin installing the facility’s frames.

“The steel should arrive in about two weeks, and then we’ll start assembling the building piece by piece,” Sampson Construction senior project manager Logan Ridgway said.

Ridgway estimated that the structural steel work should also take a couple months to complete.

Work is not expected to be slowed too much by the oncoming winter season, Ridgway added.

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Rendering of the finished health department facility. (via MOA Architecture)

Once completed, the facility will boast several new amenities and improvements over the health department’s current facility. At roughly 35,000 square feet, it will be a bit more than double the size of the current department.

Daigle said another key improvement will be a more robust rapid response clinic.

“It will allow them to have a more efficient staffing model, and will prevent potentially contagious people from entering the building and getting other people sick,” Daigle said.

With additional office space, the new building will be able to host training sessions for things such as CPR. Technological improvement will allow the department to more easily host broadcasts and video conferences, and the department’s environmental services will also see improvements, as the new building will provide them with more robust tools to serve the public, Daigle said.

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Rendering of the finished health department facility. (via MOA Architecture)

Casper-Natrona County Health Department public information officer Hailey Bloom said she’s excited to see the department host seminars and other public health events in the new building.

“I think it’s really cool that we’ll be able to provide community education and community support,” Bloom said. “We can’t really do those things in our current facility, just because of the setting and the layout.”

The building is also designed with flexibility in mind, and Daigle said the department will be able to make adjustments to accommodate more employees if necessary.

Bloom said the COVID-19 pandemic made clear the limitations of the current facility.

“We were out of space in our current location before the pandemic, but the pandemic really showed us that we weren’t prepared,” she said.

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Rendering of the finished health department facility. (via MOA Architecture)

During the pandemic, the health department had extreme difficulties finding space for the additional equipment and personnel needed to battle the coronavirus, while the need for social distancing only exacerbated the problems. In normal circumstances, Bloom said, the health department employs roughly 35–40 people; that number jumped during the pandemic, though the facility left the department in a conundrum of where to put the additional workers.

“This will help ensure that we can meet any future emergencies and demands, but also better meet our day-to-day demands,” Bloom said. “The ability to shift, modify and adapt what we’re doing will be really helpful.”

The project is on schedule to be completed in March 2026.

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Rendering of the finished health department facility. (via MOA Architecture)

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