Oconomowoc council meeting may lead to Aurora hospital deal

Milwaukee Business Journal, August 15, 2006

By Ben Fischer

The Oconomowoc Common Council will take up three proposals Tuesday that, if passed, would pave the way for Aurora Health Care to finally build its long-sought hospital in western Waukesha County.

The council will also meet in a special closed session at 5:30 p.m. to discuss an existing boundary agreement with the town of Summit, where Aurora officials have said they would prefer to build.

Specifics of the proposals were not available late Monday, but a boundary agreement between Oconomowoc and Summit would potentially have to be revisited in order to complete a deal, town of Summit chairman Len Susa said.

Included in the agenda is a "memorandum of understanding" between Oconomowoc, the town of Summit, Pabst Farms Development Inc. and Aurora Health Care. Topics included both pending lawsuits involving Aurora and an unnamed boundary agreement.

Aurora and the city have been tied up for nearly five years in a lawsuit stemming from the city's 2001 move to rezone land within the Pabst Farm subdivision north of Interstate 94 to stop the hospital system from building there.

In recent months, Aurora representatives have said they prefer to locate the new hospital to the south of I-94, in area now within the town of Summit. In May, a shopping mall was proposed for a site north of the highway that Aurora originally sought for the hospital.

In addition to a memorandum of understanding, a resolution allowing Oconomowoc to use "extraterritorial zoning powers" in the town is on the agenda. Those powers allow incorporated cities to zone adjacent land in certain circumstances.

Also, the council will consider annexing parts of the town of Oconomowoc.

Oconomowoc mayor Maury Sullivan would not confirm whether the agenda items pertained to an out-of-court settlement with Aurora, which would end official governmental opposition to the project.

Oconomowoc city clerk Diane Coenen said the closed session and the three new proposals are all related.

Aurora spokesman Jeff Squire did not return several phone calls.

The proposed hospital, which would be Aurora's 14th acute-care hospital, has been stalled since its initial proposal in 2001. After its proposal, Oconomowoc's city council decided 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 and their violations. Circuit Court Judge James Kieffer ruled in May that city officials violated their own city ordinances in rezoning the property, and declared the rezoning null and void.

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.

From the beginning, the proposal has been fiercely contested by ProHealth Care Inc., Waukesha, which owns both Oconomowoc Memorial Hospital and Waukesha Memorial Hospital.