Preliminary groundwork approved for new hospital

Plans are moving forward for completion of the new Sidney Regional Medical Center facility.

The new facility will be located at the northeast corner of the intersection of Greenwood Road and Virginia Lane. The hospital requested a re-zoning of the area from a mixture of agriculture and heavy commercial to central business district zoning.

Last week the planning commission held a public hearing last week concerning both re-zoning of the area where the facility will be built and a preliminary plat.

Jason Petik CEO of SRMC spoke with the planning commission.

He explained that the hospital worked out a deal with Cabela’s to swap the land SRMC had previously planned to use for the facility on the west side of Greenwood Road for ground on the east side. When planning for the new facility, those at the hospital realized the new structure would soon be surrounded by a residential area if built on the west side of the road.

“It just made a lot more sense to move us to the Northeast corner of that property,” Petik said.

This plan will also allow more building area for any Cabela’s development on the West side of the road, as well as a better overall traffic flow to the area.

The planning commission recommended approval of the re-zoning to the city council and the city council set a public hearing in this matter for Jan. 14. The commission also approved the preliminary plat for the hospital project.

A preliminary plat for a project might be a broader road map to the future while the final plat might be more specific, explained city manager Gary Person.

Commissioner Jonathan Mueller wondered if staff had any concerns about the hospital plans.

“Obviously the drainage plan is the major item,” said public services director John Hehnke.

The city is using Olsen and Associates as a third party consultant on the storm water plans for many of the new projects, because the ordinance is new and most of these projects are so large in scope.

The city doesn’t foresee any issues significant enough to hold up the preliminary plat, Hehnke said.

The hospital board acquired more ground than needed for the new SRMC building for a strategic reason.

“We want competition, but we want to control what’s going on across the road if we can,” Petik said.

The board will look to develop the unused corner of the property as a healthcare corridor. The board might sell some of the land for orthodontics, a vision clinic or a dental clinic.

“Or we might build it ourselves and then rent those spaces out,” Petik said.

The board might prefer this, to keep the look of the medical corridor consistent, he added.

Hehnke is consulting with the hospital daily to work out any issues with the plans. There has been some discussion about how to bring water into the new facility.

The city wants to ensure the hospital always has access to water, even in times of emergency or if something goes wrong, Hehnke said. The city is proposing a looped system with two feeds, one off of Greenwood Road and one off of Toledo Street.

Emergency access will be better at the new location as well, Person said.

“You really can approach the new hospital and the medical center community from four different directions,” Person said.

The council approved the preliminary plat. The final plat won’t be approved until the drainage plan has been examined.