Welia continues progress on Pine City campus expansion project

After breaking ground in May, Welia Health continues to make progress on an expansion project at the Pine City campus.

Garrett Estenson, director of ambulatory care services at Welia Health, shared an update on the project on Wednesday.

"Really, up until this point, it has been mostly what the public would see as underground work," Estenson said. "It has been the moving of utilities, sewer lines, water lines, fire hydrants, electrical, internet, everything underground."

The work has also involved getting the underground prepared for footings and waterproofing.

"Sometimes to the outsider, it looks like a lot of dirt moving back and forth, but that has been the majority of the work so far," Estenson said.

As of last week, steel support posts and beams have started being installed.

"That's the phase that we're in," Estenson said. "So we'll start to see a lot of changes very quickly here."

The current Pine City clinic was originally built in 2011 and expanded in 2015, to about 23,000 square feet.

Estenson said this project will add 13,000 square feet, including expanded clinic exam rooms and procedure rooms, and more room for providers, such as nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and physicians.

"Another area of growth will be the rehabilitation department," Estenson added. "We will be massively expanding in that area to serve rehabilitation needs."

Estenson explained that includes physical, occupational, and speech therapy, cardiac rehab, and pulmonary rehab.

"We'll be able to serve the community better after this project," he said.

Estenson said the expansion project also includes lab space and remodeling and establishing more dedicated spaces in the clinic's imaging department.

"A couple other pieces of this expansion include brand new lab departments, so that we're able to run more labs in-house ... which results in faster results for patients and their providers, so they can make decisions," Estenson said.

Estenson said that between now and March, the new additions to the building will be enclosed, and the new sections will be finished off.

"Starting in March of 2026, it will be some remodeling of existing spaces within the building," Estenson explained.

Completion of the project is expected in fall of 2026, although Estenson said the public will see some of the new spaces being utilized as early as March.

Estenson said operations are continuing as expected with no interruptions in service while work is being completed.

"We are making every attempt to make sure that no services are interrupted, and we've been successful with that, and on the path to remain successful with that," he said.

Estenson added that while parking has been "probably the biggest pain point for the public and for staff," most of those challenges will be addressed by the end of this weekend, save for one main lot slated for completion later this fall.

Estenson also said the "bumps in the road" with the construction process will be well worth it when the project wraps up.

"I think, overall, this is a really exciting project for the Pine City community, to bring more resources, more care, more services to this community, so that people don't have to leave their community to be able to go and receive these services," he said.