Aurora taking fresh look at hospital plans

Waukesha Freeman, August 17, 2006

By ERIK BROOKS
Freeman Staff

TOWN OF SUMMIT With an agreement in place allowing for construction of a new Pabst Farms hospital, Aurora Health Care is deciding just what that facility will look like.

Design changes are possible. How major they are remains to be seen.
In an interview, Sue Ela, president of Auroras Kettle Moraine Region, said the final details of the project first proposed in 2004 as a 360,000-square-foot, 88-bed hospital and a 100,000-square-foot clinic are still being worked out.

We will be reviewing those and refining those as we go ahead, she said, declining to say if the hospital may be larger or smaller than initially thought.

Aurora spokesman Jeff Squire said Aurora will have internal discussions with physicians and others to figure out what makes sense today in terms of the services to be offered.

We have announced what weve announced, Squire said. All I would suggest to you is that the announcement was made in April of 2004. And the plans were made well in advance of that. The plans are 2 1/2-plus years old.

Before moving ahead, we just need to take a fresh look at them.

Expansion plans by rival ProHealth Care will likely impact the debate. In May, ProHealth announced a $36.7 million expansion and renovation of Oconomowoc Memorial Hospital less than three miles from the proposed Aurora hospital and investment in a $19.6 million outpatient complex adjoining the existing ProHealth clinic at Interstate 94 and Highway 67. Oconomowoc officials have yet to approve the plans, which are in addition to millions of dollars of other upgrades at OMH since the Aurora plans were announced.

Town and Pabst Farms officials said they have not heard of any changes sought for the Aurora hospital, which is planned for 55 acres southeast of I-94 and Highway 67.

We would just have to react to whatever they propose, said Bill Niemann, vice president of Pabst Farms Development LLC. We know fairly certainly that were dealing with a site configuration of 55 acres, and they work off that.

Indeed, Aurora has months to make up its mind on the look of its new facility.

Officials have said the extraterritorial zoning process called for in the settlement between Oconomowoc, the town, Pabst Farms and Aurora in which Oconomowoc will rezone the town land to allow for construction of the hospital will take at least four months.

A six-member committee comprised of town and city officials will lead the rezoning effort, with one of its responsibilities being determining what municipality will be granted the power to make land use decisions on developments on the acreage subject to the ETZ.

Town of Summit Manager Henry Elling said he expects the town and its plan commission will be given that authority, because the acreage under consideration for ETZ lies entirely in the town. Once that happens, the town government can then act on any detailed plans Aurora brings forward, Elling said.

He said Aurora will need conditional use and building permits and a developers agreement with the town before construction can begin.

Aurora officials said they hope to break ground on the hospital within six months. Construction would then take another 18 months to two years.

Everybody is expecting an Aurora prototype, Niemann said.

Andy Serio, president of Health Care System Consultants, Wauwatosa, said the local health care marketplace has changed even in the last two years, and Auroras plans for the town of Summit might have to change to reflect that.

The outpatient care is becoming as big as the inpatient care, and the inpatient care is becoming specialized, with more of a focus on imaging services, he said.

Still, he said 88 beds is a good number for Aurora.

One hundred would have been too much, he said.

Aurora will wait until it obtains building permits before giving up its purchase rights to another 43.5-acre site it holds northeast of I-94 and Highway 67 in Oconomowoc, Niemann said. Once that is done, the land will be used for a 121-acre retail complex proposed by Pabst Farms and General Growth Properties Inc.

Aurora also will close on the purchase of the town land when it obtains its building permits, Niemann said. Pabst Farms owns the land. Niemann declined to give the purchase price.

Elling said the public will have a chance to comment on the final look of the hospital during a hearing as part of the conditional use permitting process. The ETZ process also requires limited public input, likely just from town residents, he said.

Elling said he hopes not to see a repeat of previous public hearings about the hospital, which drew hundreds of people from across the region.

He said the debate has moved beyond that, to more site-specific concerns like driveway placement and landscaping that are common sources of concerns in developments.

That is really the level that were at, Elling said. The question of whether or not its going to be a hospital or not has been resolved.