ASHLAND, Ky. — Fifteen months ago King’s Daughters Medical Center featured a gaping hole in its proverbial front yard.

Today, the hospital can showcase its new heart and vascular center — a $65.5 million towering, mirror-windowed complex hospital officials say will save and change lives.

“It has been a labor of love this past 15 months, making this come to fruition,” said KDMC President and CEO Fred Jackson. “We were all ‘wowed’ when we saw the results of a project so long in coming.”

Calling it “unparalleled and second to none throughout the country,” Jackson and KDMC officials formally cut the ribbon Thursday on the five-story center located directly outside the main entrance along 22nd Street and had a special guest to help — Gov. Ernie Fletcher.

“This will add a tremendous asset to the community and to the Tri-State as well,” said Fletcher, a former physician who married a nurse, and shared with the hundreds gathered that his perspective had changed even more following a recent hospitalization for health problems.

The governor praised the KDMC staff and leaders that understood that a hospital needs quality facilities to do “miraculous work.”

The grand opening of the 200,000 square foot Heart and Vascular Center marks the largest expansion in the medical center’s 107-year history.

With a sheer scope that is staggering, more than 400 construction workers labored to put all the pieces together — and there were lots and lots of pieces.

The center includes 586 doors, 923 tons of structural steel, 2,274 light fixtures, 12,000 cubic yards of concrete and 35,000 square feet each of sheet vinyl, glass and carpet.

But don’t think that the center is sterile and just bricks and mortar. In fact, it is far more, Jackson said.

The center’s GetWell Network offers on-demand multimedia services for patients such as Internet, e-mail, movies and games. The GetWell Network also enables patients to learn more about their condition and medications, and interact with their caregivers. For example, patients can provide feedback on their pain levels, watch educational videos, submit surveys about their hospital experience, order room service, recognize team members who have provided exceptional care, and make special requests.

“It is really more like a hotel,” he joked.

The center will open to patients Monday but that is only the first step in the three-phased opening that will culminate in October. In six weeks, the vascular labs will open. The surgery and step-down unit its will open this fall.