Work To Start On Addition At Mercywood

Work To Start On Addition At Mercywood 75-Bed Structure Set; Ground To Be Broken In Ceremony Tomorrow Ground will be broken tomorrow for a 75-bed addition to Mercywood Sanitorium on Jackson Rd., a spokesman for the Sisters of Mercy, operators of the institution, announced in Detroit early this afternoon. Although plans for such an addition were first revealed in May, 1950, today's announcement came as a surprise. The project has been help up by difficulties in supplying sewer and water utilities to the sanitarium. Ground-breaking ceremonies are scheduled at 2:30 p.m. tomorrow. They were authorized by Rev. Mother M. Carmelita, mother provincial of the Detroit province of the Sisters of Mercy, Catholic nursing order of nuns. Msgr. G. Warren Peek, pastor of St. Thomas Catholic Church here, will officiate at the ceremony, along with Sister Mary Angela, administrator of Mercywood, other Sisters of Mercy, student nurses and doctors. West Of Present Building S. S. Cook, president of the Star Engineering Co. of Detroit, contractor for the project, said the addition will be of reinforced concrete fireproof construction. It will be built directly west of the present building, located on an 80acre site one mile west of Ann Arbor on US-12. The addition will be four stories high, Cook said, and will have a full basement. The new building will extend 271 feet west of the existing structure and will have two wings, 80 and 45 long, extending northward from the back of the main edifice. The exterior will be of face! brick with limestone, cook said. The 75 new bedrooms, each with private bath, will more than double the present 50-bed capacity of the institution. Besides the bedrooms, the addition will contain a boiler room, laundry, kitchen, two elevators, an emergency surgery, laboratory, pharmacy and special diet kitchens. Other facilities planned include a new patients' auditorium, new chapel wing, hydro-therapy and electro-therapy rooms, and patient solariums. Detroiter Is Architect Victor Basso of Detroit is the architect. Cost of the project was not disclosed. Mercywood handles only mental hygiene patients. Officials of the institution more than two years ago cited crowded conditions in proposing the expansion program which will finally get under way tomorrow: Chief bottleneck has been the utility - problem. The city of Ann Arbor balked at first against extending sewer and water lines to Mercywood, but a compromise, announced in August of 1951, was finally reached. This compromise provided that the city would furnish the services if Mercywood would pay double the regular rates for them.