Aurora's hospital plans in Summit advance

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, February 15, 2007

By AMY RINARD

Summit - Plans for a $189 million Aurora hospital and clinic complex at I-94 and Highway 67 at Pabst Farms were endorsed Thursday night by the Plan Commission and sent to the Town Board for approval.

Town supervisors could give the project the go-ahead as soon as their next meeting, March 1, as planning for the hospital, originally proposed for this site in 2004, moves into high gear.

Aurora officials have said they want to begin construction in spring and hope to open the 792,000-square-foot, four-story hospital and Aurora Wilkinson Medical Clinic complex in the summer of 2009.

Pabst Farms developers intend for the Aurora medical center to be the centerpiece of a larger health and wellness campus at that location as other medical offices, clinics and medical service providers move to the site.

On Thursday, a battalion of bulldozers and other earth-moving equipment worked to prepare the construction site at the southeast corner of the I-94 and Highway 67 interchange. The town already has granted Pabst Farms officials a grading permit to begin construction of roads and the installation of sewer and water lines.

At a joint meeting of the Plan Commission and the Town Board on Jan. 29, Aurora officials presented their plans and answered questions. Members of the commission on Thursday reviewed individual aspects of the project plans including architecture, the site plan, an operating plan, parking, traffic, landscaping, lighting and signs.

Commission members voted unanimously to recommend that the Town Board grant Aurora a building permit and approve the building, site and operation plans for the medical center. Their action was subject to Aurora's meeting several conditions, including obtaining approval of a revised design for the hospital's central service building that would be close to the interstate.

The town also is negotiating a developer's agreement with Aurora that will include a schedule of payments in lieu of taxes that Aurora will make to the town on the property tax-exempt hospital portion of the medical center.