City planning staff are getting their first look at plans for the new clinical building and parkade slated to be built in front of Royal Inland Hospital.

Development and engineering services director Marvin Kwiatkowski said Friday he has just received the large-scale drawings. Now he and his staff have to go over them to work out details before they are presented to City council at the Nov. 20 meeting.

The seven-storey structure is 18,000 square metres in size. It includes a 350-stall parkade, commercial and retail space, clinical services offices and mechanical area along with an elevator to give patients a safe way of getting up the hill to the main hospital.

There's also a green roof with shrubs, perennials and ground cover.

Accesses and egresses for traffic are not all worked out yet, he said.

Interior Health is eager to get moving on the project, so there's a push at the City to get the plans up and ready for the building permit and then construction stage at winter's end.

"The project's on a fairly tight timeline. We just got the drawings and will take it to staff in the next week," said Kwiatkowski.

Marg Brown, RIH health service administrator, said the price tag for the entire project, from design to construction to outfitting the building, is $80 million.

The clinical building is the first phase of the RIH master site plan that eventually calls for a patient care tower and other improvements.

"It's really moving fast," said Brown, adding that construction should be started in late 2013.

There are still details being worked out. The exact site of the building isn't set yet — geotechnical studies are being done to find the best spot.

Which clinical services will be moved over from the hospital hasn't been determined yet, either, but Brown said they will involve outpatients.

Who will move into the 600 metres of commercial space isn't known yet, either.

And the access and egress is a work in progress, too, she said.

What is known is that the bottom four floors will be commercial and parking. The next two are clinical services and the top floor is mechanical.

There will be room for UBC medical students, including a lecture theatre and teaching space.

And for people in wheelchairs and scooters or who just don't want to climb all those stairs to get to the main hospital, there will be a street-level entrance and elevator that attaches to a covered walkway to RIH's second floor.

"All of those needs were taken into consideration to make it as safe as possible," she said.

myoung@kamloopsnews.ca email

@MicheleYoungKDN Twitter