Aurora breaks ground on medical center

The Daily Reporter, May 18, 2007

By Joe Grundle

A burst of applause coupled with a smattering of yahoos greeted Summit Town Board Member Elaine Kraut as she welcomed a large crowd to Aurora Health Cares groundbreaking ceremony Thursday in Waukesha County.

Finally, after years of lawsuits and squabbles between Aurora, the county, the city of Oconomowoc and the town of Summit, the $189 million Aurora Medical Center was a done deal, and a collective feeling of relief could be sensed among the participants.

Im feeling a combination of both excitement and relief, Summit Chairman Len Susa said before the groundbreaking. I think its a long time coming, and Im looking forward to what it can do for Summit.

Those thoughts were echoed by several other ceremony speakers, which included Aurora representatives CEO Nick Turkal, COO Don Nestor, David Ulery and retired President Ed Howe. Ulery is the president of Auroras Wilkinson Medical Clinic in Oconomowoc that will relocate to the new center when completed.

For the Wilkinson Clinic, this is another milestone, said Ulery. We have been serving (Oconomowoc) since the 1890s, and with this new clinic and hospital, we can provide the best care for decades to come.

Aurora first proposed to build a hospital in Oconomowoc in 2001, but the city blocked its rezoning. Aurora sued the city and, in 2004, also proposed building at a site in Summit. Summit leaders were all for the hospital, but Waukesha County rejected the plan out of fear of rising health care costs in the region, prompting another lawsuit by Aurora and Summit. The lawsuits were settled last August, with Aurora receiving permission to build in Summit at the southeast corner of Interstate 94 and Highway 67.

50-acre site

The Summit Town Board approved Auroras final designs for a 110-bed hospital on March 1.

This architecture sets a new bar, a high standard for development in Summit, said Susa. We can point to this as an example that it can be done. And I like the fact that there is over 50 percent green space. Even our residential developments only require 40 percent.

M. A. Mortenson Co. of Brookfield is constructing the 593,000-square-foot hospital and 180,000-square-foot medical clinic on a 53-acre campus, which Susa said could bring more than 600 jobs to western Waukesha County when its completed in summer 2009.

(Summit) will be losing $60 million in tax base in 2010 through annexations, and the completion of this hospital will get 75 percent of that back in one project, said Susa.

It has been a tense few years between Summit, Oconomowoc and Waukesha County, but Susa believed that the past could be put behind and didnt think any bad blood would linger long.

There is a little bit of that in the background, but I think were beyond that now, he said. We are sharing a fire station with Oconomowoc, in large part because of the Aurora development, and so really were forced to get along.

We know we cant be in our little cocoon anymore.