Hospice Director Katrina Altenhofen christens the building demolition.

Nearly a year after breaking ground for a new facility, Hospice of Washington County broke down their former building Monday.

Executive Director Katrina Altenhofen shrieked as she took the first bite of the brick building on DeLong Construction’s excavator, as the non-profit organization’s next project is to retrofit the property south of their new offices with two bioretention cells to mitigate water runoff, filter surface water, and control its release into the local storm sewers. Altenhofen talks about the demolition which was delayed for a month due to weather conditions, “It’s nice to have it torn down and be able to move on to this next chapter for Hospice of Washington County, but also there’s a lot of history in there. Gina and I Friday after all the staff left kind of walked the building one last time and thinking about the various memories and laughing, ‘Oh my gosh, do you remember when we had to suck out this amount of water and pull up that amount of carpet,’ and stuff. So even though it’s bittersweet, it’s time.”

Hospice was recently awarded a $60,464 grant from the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship as part of 17 urban water quality projects across the state. Project Coordinator for the West Fork Crooked Creek and Long Creek watersheds Nicole Haney watched the demolition, “It’s actually a huge moment for Washington County because a lot of our water quality is focused on what producers can do and a lot of producers that I speak to also have urban issues as well. So this is going to bring some new light and also to our fellow watershed people that live in urban areas there are things that we can do to help the water quality as well.”

The overall project will use native plantings and seeding in the bioretention cells and building landscaping, and the disturbed areas of the property will use compost, topsoil and tillage to improve soil conditions and reduce nutrient runoff into the Crooked and Long creeks. Work is anticipated to be finished in mid-June, with Hospice looking forward to hosting an open house to celebrate this and their new building.