Remodeling an Open Clinic: Apex PT & Wellness · Fargo INC!
Businesses
The Business Owner’s Perspective
Remodeling without closing the doors: for Brooke Erstad, renovating Apex Physical Therapy & Wellness’s approximately 10,000-square-foot West Fargo clinic meant improving the space without stopping patient care.
In shortBrooke Erstad, co-owner of Apex Physical Therapy & Wellness, renovated the approximately 10,000-square-foot West Fargo clinic while continuing to treat patients through a phased, wing-by-wing construction approach.
3 things to know
1The project involved changing from brown tones to gray and white, replacing carpet, redoing artwork, and tearing down and rebuilding the front desk to meet ADA surface requirements.
2To keep seeing patients, the team shifted staff from the west side to the east side, displacing therapists for a week or two per wing, and set up tables in the lobby for check-in and scheduling.
3Erstad agreed to pay extra for off-hours work on weekends and nights after jackhammering during the day disrupted patient care and staff morale.
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For Brooke Erstad, renovating Apex Physical Therapy & Wellness’s approximately 10,000-square-foot West Fargo clinic meant improving the space without stopping patient care.
Brooke and the Apex team did a great job with the front-end work. They had already made many of their selections based on recent projects and had put together a clear hierarchy of what mattered most for this location. From there, we worked within their budget to get the ‘need to haves’ and as many ‘nice to haves’ as possible. On some of the extras, the juice just wasn’t worth the squeeze, and we worked through those decisions together. That helped their budget go further while leaving room to add scope when we saw ways to make the space work better.
Casey McGarry, our project manager, worked closely with their team throughout construction and had this to say: “Brooke, Kam, and their team were wonderful partners from start to finish. They were responsive and decisive when decisions needed to be made, and they welcomed new ideas and handled changes with flexibility. Their communication kept things moving, and it was always a joy to walk on-site and work with them. We had plenty of challenges and plenty of laughs along the way. We thoroughly enjoyed working with their team on this one!”
What did this latest remodel involve, and what made it more extensive than you initially expected?
We have around 10,000 square feet here in West Fargo, and we refreshed it with Grafstrom, changing from brown tones to gray and white, a little more current color scheme.
Carpet was changed out. Wall colors. None of our existing furniture really worked. Artwork had to be redone. It ended up being a little more involved than maybe I was fully prepared for.
Another big thing with our refresh was that we needed to drop some of our counter heights down. We needed an ADA surface, so that involved tearing down our old front desk and rebuilding.
The waiting room fireplace
A refreshed waiting area
Had you worked with Grafstrom Construction before this project?
We moved in here in 2015, and it was in good shape as is. We made some small modifications with a different company. I hadn’t met the Grafstrom crew at that time.
Since then, we’ve had to update a bathroom here or there with them. It’s always been a good experience, so it was a pretty easy call to make.
How did you keep treating patients while the space was being remodeled?
For us, it was imperative to keep seeing patients. You’ve got to have the revenue coming in, and yet I’m changing the spaces that they are in all the time.
We do a lot of private treatment rooms. With Hans and Casey, the project manager on our case, we came up with a plan with our team and their team to shift everybody on the west side over to the east. Where are they going to be doing patient care for the next week or two?
Moving things back in during the remodel
We did one wing’s painting, and they were great about coordinating flooring to go in right at the same time, so we displaced therapists for a week or two. You can keep morale high and deal with everybody’s stuff being moved.
Then we’d move back into that space and start the next. We had a slow, graded progression, trying to keep business operations at the forefront of our decision-making.
For the front desk, we had to set up tables in the lobby for our check-in and scheduling spot. Internet access and all of those things had to shift over. It was a very phased project, and we really had to work hand in hand with Hans’s team to make it successful.
How did the types of care you provide affect those decisions?
This is our biggest location. We have a big pelvic crew, so we do pelvic physical therapy, probably about 50% from this location. Of our 15 treatment rooms, probably seven of them are pelvic rooms.
We also do a lot of outpatient orthopedic therapy. A lot of those therapists did their entire treatments out of the gym. Our brand, so to speak, is that we’re really hands-on, and you sometimes need a room for some of those techniques.
Our therapists were great about moving out to the gym so that the pelvic patients and people disrobing still got a treatment room.
A work room mid-remodel
We also have massage here, so it was a little tricky to keep the massage therapists as far away from the noise as possible.
What surprised you about working around construction?
The noise factor. Although we planned out the shift, it’s pretty hard to take phone calls when they’re jackhammering tile in a different part of the building.
I didn’t really know if doing some work in the off hours was a possibility, and it was. That really helped us out, weekends and nights.
I did agree to pay a little extra to have that so the business operations weren’t disrupted. But we did kind of learn that the hard way. The jackhammering was on everybody’s last nerve, and I heard about it. You can deal with it for an hour, but when it goes on all day, your nervous system’s fried, and we’re trying to teach people to relax.
What should another owner understand about the time and communication a project like this requires?
You’re going to have to be patient. We had a couple of delays with shipping. I kind of knew some of that was going to happen.
Initially, we thought it was going to be three months, and it did get longer than that. It takes a ton of communication, almost daily, with your project manager.
They were really easy to work with and fun, and they did some of it at night. But I think you’ve got to be prepared.
How did you prepare your staff and keep them involved?
Get your staff as ready as possible. We did a lot of asking what would make their lives easier, and that really helped everyone be willing to make the sacrifices.
I wasn’t able to make good on all of the requests, of course, but it was helpful that they knew their ideas were considered in making our space work better.
They were a big part of shifting and moving stuff. Include your staff, be really informative and let the public know.
Was working with a designer helpful?
I thought coordinating with a designer was helpful because it became so obvious that our old décor and lobby furniture and all those things would need to be changed.
We’ve built out a couple of locations recently, so I was pretty well prepared. I knew the colors and finishes that I wanted, and that was helpful.
About Brooke Erstad
A co-owner, CEO, and director of fitness, Erstad is a doctor of physical therapy and board-certified women’s health clinical specialist. Apex is a therapist-owned outpatient practice with six locations across West Fargo, Fargo, Jamestown, LaMoure, and Edgeley, offering physical therapy, massage, and fitness services.
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