TIFTON — The Tift County Hospital Authority approved $37.95 million for the development of the new Cook Medical Center at its March 21 meeting.

The board also appointed Brasfield & Gorrie, a construction firm based out of Huntsville, Ala. to oversee the project.

The new facility will be 120,000-square-feet, including a 10,000-square-foot medical office building. The bed-size of the new facility will be 20 hospital beds, including 18 private rooms and two semi-private rooms, and 95 nursing home beds to include 87 private rooms and eight semi-private rooms.

The board approved an additional $9.77 million for equipment and furnishings for Cook Medical Center.

“Two years ago, we didn’t know what it was going to be, so we held off spending,” said Chris Dorman, CEO and president of Tift Regional Health System.

That includes: $2.7 million for low voltage IT equipment such as computers, televisions, wiring, access control and the nurse call system; $3.6 million for medical equipment; $1.7 million for furniture and artwork; $750,000 for ditching and laundry equipment and specialty casework; $600,000 for construction loan interest; and $400,000 in interior and exterior signage.

The board gave $100,000 to Ruth’s Cottage capital campaign, while the TRHS Foundation gave an additional $50,000.

“We’re off and running and hope to have a real successful campaign,” said campaign chair Lynn Lovett.

Ruth’s Cottage, a domestic violence shelter that’s been serving the community for more than 15 years, is in the middle of a fundraising campaign to build a new facility.

Currently, the shelter’s operations are spread across five buildings in different locations.

There’s the shelter itself, an administration building, two storage facilities for secure documents and a fifth building they use to store donations and supplies.

“This building would put all of that in one place,” said Nancy Bryan, executive director of Ruth’s Cottage, in a previous Tifton Gazette story. “It’d be safer and more secure for all of us. And it’ll increase our capacity to serve in our shelter.”

The new, 11,200 square-foot building would take Ruth’s Cottage from 12 to 25 beds.

The hospital authority approved a $500,000 overhaul for two elevators at Tift Regional Medical Center.

Both elevators are from 1965.

The board voted to strike a sentence from the TRHS investment policy requiring investors to report to the board whenever any investment fell below 30 percent of cost.

Board members also discussed taking some money out of investments to pay debt.