Aurora given green light

Summit approves hospital plan, is promised payments

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, March 1, 2007

By AMY RINARD

Summit - The Town Board on Thursday gave the go-ahead to Aurora Health Care for construction of its long-sought new hospital in western Waukesha County.

The board also approved a plan under which Aurora will make annual payments to the town in lieu of property taxes on the tax-exempt, non-profit hospital.

"This is a huge step after six years of work on this; we're delighted," said David Ulery, an Oconomowoc doctor and president of the Aurora-owned Wilkinson Clinic, which will move from Oconomowoc to a new building adjacent to the hospital.

The 110-bed, $189 million hospital and clinic will be built at the southeast corner of the I-94/Highway 67 interchange. That portion of Pabst Farms, often called the Summit triangle, is intended by developers to eventually become a larger health and wellness campus as other clinics and medical offices locate there.

Town officials have supported the plan since 2004 when Aurora first proposed to build a hospital there. It took a legal settlement signed last summer by Aurora, the town, the City of Oconomowoc and Pabst Farms officials to finally pave the way for construction to begin.

An Aurora hospital had been proposed in 2001 for a site near the northeast corner of I-94 and Highway 67 in Oconomowoc. That plan was blocked by the Common Council, and Aurora then sued the city.

Ulery said Aurora hopes to begin construction of the Summit hospital as soon as possible this spring and open it in 2009.

Grading at the site by Pabst Farms developers already has begun. A pond, created 40 years ago during excavation for construction of I-94, is being relocated to another part of the triangle site before work can begin on the hospital and clinic complex.

Following the recommendations of the town Plan Commission, town supervisors Thursday night granted Aurora a building permit and approved in concept the building, site and operations plans for the new medical center. The approval was contingent on some details of the plans being approved later by town staff or other appropriate agencies.

The schedule of payments to the town calls for $1.7 million to be paid by Aurora upon issuance of a town building permit, with $1.5 million of that going into an escrow fund to be used toward construction of a new fire station in Pabst Farms that will be used jointly by the town and Oconomowoc fire departments. That payment is considered an advance on the first several years of annual payments called for in the agreement, which this year through 2010 will total $100,000 annually.

A payment of $1.2 million will be paid when an occupancy permit is issued by the town for the medical center. That also is considered an advance on several years' worth of annual payments to resume in 2013 with a payment of $150,000 a year through 2018. In 2019 through 2035 the payment will be $200,000 a year, increasing to $250,000 a year after that with an annual adjustment based on the Consumer Price Index.

Chairman Len Susa said the new payment agreement results in slightly more total money for the town than the agreement negotiated in 2004 before the County Board blocked Aurora's plans.

"I'm very happy with this," Susa said Thursday.