VALPARAISO | A new 100-bed hospital won't be built in the city next year unless two actions to be introduced at Tuesday's Plan Commission meeting are approved.
The sale of about 53 acres at Ind. 49 and County Road 500 North to Memorial Health Systems of South Bend is contingent on creating a new medical, office and technology district zoning category in the city's zoning codes and rezoning the property to the new category. It currently is zoned for office park use.
"The city doesn't want to deviate from that," Todd Etzler, a lawyer for Memorial, said of the office park zoning, "and the medical use is an extension of that plan. We expect and hope for the good of the hospital that there will be a lot of medical offices and medical-related businesses there, but it is not limited to only those things that are medically related."
City Administrator William Hanna said the medical, office and technology district zoning is specific to hospital uses but is not specific to this development.
"The advantage to the city is that we are laying everything on the table and saying this is what we want a hospital development to look like," Hanna said.
He said the district would include all the standard things for a hospital and its ancillary services, the offices that operate in conjunction with the hospital and room for the hospital to grow.
"There is medical campus potential and the potential to raise a medical economy," Hanna said. "We want to be sure we don't stunt the growth of the medical economy in that region. It will also keep stuff out. We want to be sure it doesn't become a commercial district. We want enough commercial to support the medical center and provide a retail base but not become a shopping center."
Hanna said retail could include things like a restaurant and a dry cleaning service but not a major department store or the type of retail that would compete with the city's other commercial corridors.
He said the city has anticipated this type of use for that area for several months, even preceding the sale of Porter hospital. Memorial was one of those interested in buying the county hospital but lost out to Triad Hospitals Inc., which was bought out by Tennessee-based Community Health Systems.
A presentation on the medical, office and technology district designation and the rezoning request will be made at Tuesday's meeting. To meet the deadlines for the sale of the land, the hospital will ask for a special commission meeting to be held about 10 days later to hold the public hearing and act on both requests, Etzler said.
"The members of the commission and the staff are amenable to being expeditious," Hanna said.
Memorial announced Tuesday it plans to start construction next year on the 225,000-square-foot hospital and a 100,000-square-foot medical office building on the site. The $100 million hospital is expected to be ready to open in 2010 and will include an emergency room, surgical services, obstetrics and critical care.
The hospital will be designed to expand to include 250 beds in the future. The land is being bought from retired radiologist Surjit Patheja, who owns another 80 acres next to the proposed hospital site. The land was annexed by the city in 2006.
