SKOWHEGAN — Redington-Fairview General Hospital got the green light to move ahead with plans for a 24,000-square-foot medical office building and two new parking areas.

The Skowhegan Planning Board, which had heard initial plans from hospital representatives in June, approved the proposal unanimously Tuesday after a brief discussion.

The planned medical office building will be an expansion of the existing hospital structure at 46 Fairview Ave. on the Fairview Avenue side, where there is currently a vehicle loading and unloading area.

For the parking lot expansion, the hospital plans to demolish the family medicine building at the corner of Jones Street and Fairview Avenue. The resulting lot is expected to have a capacity of 83 spaces.

A second phase of parking lot construction would add 41 parking spaces in an area to the north of the existing parking lot off Jones Street.

Chris MacDonald, a civil engineer with the hospital’s engineering firm, Gorham-based BH2M, told the board that parking area is slated for after the construction of the medical office building and first parking lot, “as needs arise.”

The medical office building project is estimated at $18 million, according to a Sept. 25 letter from RFGH’s chief financial officer, Elmer Doucette, to Skowhegan officials and the Maine Department of Environmental Protection. The letter was included with the site plan review application submitted to the town.

The building project is expected to be funded by tax exempt revenue bonds issued through the Maine Health & Higher Educational Facilities Authority and some internal funds, the letter said.

Hospital officials expect construction to begin in April and is targeting completion by March 2027, RFGH’s director of plant operations Jacoby Johnson told the Planning Board.

Officials at the 25-bed critical access facility had proposed a similar expansion in a different location in 2020, but those plans did not come to fruition.

The hospital, which says it serves more than 30,000 patients in Somerset County, submitted an initial version of the most recent iteration of its proposal to the Planning Board in June.

Planning Board members then had questions about impacts to stormwater runoff that may contribute to flooding issues in the Currier Brook watershed.

MacDonald said at Tuesday’s meeting that the medical office building should have no impact, as the current drop-off and pick-up area where it is planned to be constructed is already an impervious surface.

As for the parking lots, plans call for stormwater management systems such as a soil filter and underground water storage.

MacDonald said engineers expect those systems to result in a net reduction in stormwater runoff from the area.

Planning Board Chairman Steve Conley said board members toured the hospital site several weeks ago and most of their questions about stormwater runoff were answered.

“It seems like we’re coming out way ahead on this project, concerning our goals to try to reduce this excess runoff getting into our streams quickly,” Conley said during Tuesday’s meeting.

The hospital is seeking a permit from the Maine DEP, which was still pending as of the end of January, according to its site plan review application.

The Maine Department of Transportation is not requiring a traffic movement permit, as engineers do not anticipate the new building would result in a major increase to traffic.

Representatives of The Maine Water Co., the Waste Management Crossroads Landfill in Norridgewock and Skowhegan’s municipal wastewater treatment plant also had no concerns about the hospital’s plan for expansion, according to letters submitted with the hospital’s application.