Work starts on new hospital

Aurora agrees to handle public upgrades in Summit

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, October 17, 2007

By AMY RINARD

Summit - After months of site preparation, work has begun on the footings and foundation of a new Aurora Health Care hospital at I-94 and state Highway 67.

The town recently granted a permit allowing the work to begin following approval of a new developer's agreement with Aurora, which is building the $189 million hospital.

The original developer's agreement for the project was with Pabst Farms Development.

Town Planner/Administrator Henry Elling said Tuesday that a new agreement needed to be approved by the town board after Pabst Farms and Aurora officials agreed that Aurora would take over responsibilities for building public improvements on the site including streets, sidewalks, sewer and water lines, and planting of trees.

"Now, Aurora's going to run the whole project," he said.

Aurora spokesman Jeff Squire said he was not familiar with the developer's agreement but believed it was always Aurora's intent "to take care of all the improvements relevant to the site."

Elling said he believed the switch may have been the result of Aurora being able to offer "an economy of scale" for the public improvements by folding them into other contracts for work to be done on the non-public areas of the hospital site.

"It may have been just easier for them to do everything rather than to hand off some of the work to Pabst Farms," he said.

As part of the developer's agreement, Elling said, Aurora was required to secure a $1.8 million line of credit to ensure that money would be available to complete all the public improvements in the event that construction stops on the hospital.

"We don't want a half-done sewer line or a road that doesn't go anywhere," he said.

Aurora's building plans are now under review by the state. When the state approves the plans, the town will issue a building permit allowing work to begin on the above-ground parts of the hospital, Elling said.

When that permit is granted, Aurora will be required to pay the town $100,000 in lieu of taxes. Under a separate agreement with the town, Aurora agreed to make annual payments to the town in lieu of property taxes on the nonprofit, tax-exempt hospital.

Aurora officials have said they plan to open the new hospital in late 2009 or early 2010.