WATERVILLE (AP) – One day after voting against consolidating its Waterville and Augusta hospitals, MaineGeneral Medical Center’s board announced plans to build a regional cancer treatment center in northern Augusta.

The proposed building announced Tuesday would not be the specialty care center that officials voted on Monday to develop at one of their existing hospitals, said Scott Bullock, MaineGeneral’s president and chief executive officer.

Board members said the proposed center would not lead to de facto consolidation. They voted Monday to dedicate one hospital to specialty care on a regional basis while focusing the other on outpatient and routine inpatient care.

Bullock said MaineGeneral will ask specialists from Waterville and Augusta to describe their ideal regional specialty care center.

Their first meeting is scheduled for Thursday, he said.

The board voted to close the hospital’s Seaton unit in Waterville, something Bullock said had been discussed for 13 years. Though he said he hoped a buyer could be found, Bulock said it was likely the building will be torn down and the site used for something else.

Conrad Ayotte, chairman of the board’s strategic planning committee, was the only board member not to take part in Monday’s vote.

He abstained, in part because his family owns more than 100 acres of land in Sidney, along a tract that was considered as a possible location for a consolidated hospital.

AP-ES-06-09-04 0926EDT