Court ruling revives Aurora's Waukesha County hospital plan

Milwaukee Business Journal, May 26, 2006

A Waukesha County Circuit Court judge ruled Thursday that the city of Oconomowoc's rezoning of a parcel of land in the Pabst Farms development -- blocking Aurora Health Care 's plans to build a hospital there -- was improper, and declared the rezoning null and void.

The ruling rekindles Aurora's plans to build a hospital in the growing Waukesha County community. Aurora Health Care officials have said the Milwaukee health care system moved to reissue a proposal to build the hospital on the Oconomowoc site, Aurora spokesman Jeff Squire said.

The new 88-bed hospital would include 360,000 square feet of hospital space and 100,000 square feet of clinic space. It would cost a total of $166 million, including land acquisition costs and equipment purchases, according to an expert witness report filed in the Oconomowoc case.

Aurora first proposed building the hospital in March 2001, but after months of debate of whether another hospital was needed in the area, Oconomowoc's city council decided in June 2001 to rezone the property from suburban commercial to suburban industrial, blocking the plans.

Aurora challenged the rezoning in Waukesha County Circuit Court, citing violations of Wisconsin's zoning laws, the U.S. and Wisconsin Constitutions, Wisconsin's Open Records Act, Wisconsin's Open Meetings Act and Oconomowoc zoning ordinances. Among his rulings, Circuit Court Judge James Kieffer ruled Thursday that city officials violated their own city ordinances in rezoning the property, Squire said.

As the case wound through the courts, Aurora sought to build the hospital on a nearby parcel of land -- also in the Pabst Farms development -- in the town of Summit. Following a heated debate between Aurora proponents and ProHealth Care Inc. , which operates Oconomowoc Memorial Hospital , the Waukesha County Board voted in April 2005 to reject a rezoning proposal that would have allowed Aurora to build an $85 million, 88-bed hospital in Summit. Both Aurora and the town of Summit challenged the board's vote in court, but Waukesha County Circuit Court Judge Mark Gempeler ruled in favor of the county board in March.

Thursday's ruling comes three weeks after ProHealth Care announced plans to invest as much as $41 million to renovate Oconomowoc Memorial -- adding 44,000 square feet and up to 11 new beds -- and build a physician center in Oconomowoc. ProHealth officials justified the expansion by saying that ProHealth was being "responsible" in meeting the area's growing health care needs.

Aurora officials have said that the ProHealth expansion shows that there is a need for more health care services in Waukesha County.