Lab work

Lab work

Work will begin this month on a long-awaited laboratory building at NorthBay Medical Center in Fairfield.

NorthBay Healthcare has received the last of the necessary state and city permits for the $5.5 million project, which will involve building a 4,000-square-foot facility on the front side of the hospital near the ambulance entrance to the emergency department.

The space being vacated by the current laboratory will remain unused until funding is secured and planning is done for a new pharmacy in the Fairfield hospital. That project, hospital officials said, will be affected by the economic downturn, especially the cuts that community nonprofit hospitals are experiencing from state and federal governments.

Groundbreaking will be the final week of January, with construction taking a year. The laboratory is expected to be operating by January 2010.