The University’s Riverfront Research Park is no longer on the discussion table as a possible site for McKenzie-Willamette’s new hospital.
A City of Eugene assessment has concluded the research park doesn’t have enough developable space to allow McKenzie-Willamette Medical Center to build a new hospital there, silencing recent urgings from city and community leaders that the site would be better than McKenzie-Willamette’s preferred site in north Eugene.
KVAL 13 News reported on Friday that the mayor, a city counselor and the Cal Young neighborhood association president were pushing for the University’s Riverfront Research Park to become McKenzie-Willamette Medical Center’s latest option for a new hospital, but hospital officials are still making plans to put a new hospital at a North Delta Highway location.
Eugene Mayor Kitty Piercy said the city manager’s office assessed the Riverfront property on Friday and found it an unlikely site for the new hospital, although she was hopeful for the location.
Piercy said she saw no indication from the city manager’s office assessment that the Riverfront property is still an option.
“I had hoped that might be a possibility,” she said.
Established as a not-for-profit community hospital in Springfield, McKenzie-Willamette partnered with Texas-based Triad Hospitals Inc. in 2003 to become a for-profit venture. It is planning to start construction on a seven-story, $225 million medical center on North Delta Highway in Eugene this year.
Northwest-based PeaceHealth, which owns Sacred Heart Medical Center near campus, will move some of Sacred Heart’s operations to the RiverBend property in Springfield.
McKenzie-Willamette Medical Center spokeswoman Rosie Pryor said North Delta Highway is still the preferred location for the new hospital.
“Let me say that the city of Eugene has just verified that there’s 15 developable acres,” Pryor said. Twenty-five acres was the hospital’s desired minimum, and the Delta site has about 40.
“For all intents and purposes, it’s shovel-ready,” Pryor said.
In her State of the City address on Jan. 5, Piercy said the Delta Highway site, which is on part of the RiverRidge Golf Course, is “not in the preferred central city area, but it is in Eugene.”
Eugene City Manager Dennis Taylor had discussed the possibility of the Riverfront Research Park several times throughout December, according to his spokeswoman, Jan Bohman.
Neither city officials nor the University’s director of media relations, Mary Stanik, would elaborate on discussion details, but one University official said that discussions were initiated by the city manager’s office.
“The city approached the University about this Riverfront Research Park and we’ve been willing to sit down and listen to them,” said Michael Redding, the associate vice president of public and government affairs for the University, but no specific proposals to buy the property were made.
Bohman said the Riverfront site was on a list of 11 other sites “way back when,” and was not seriously considered until other alternatives fell through.
“My understanding is that it’s been determined that the hospital isn’t interested in that site,” Bohman said.
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