9.23.09
Riverside Hospital to expand campus
By: Mark Ferenchik - Dispatch.com
Riverside Methodist Hospital is planning a $150 million to $500 million campus expansion that could include a new cancer center, offices and parking garages.

The development, which could create 200 jobs and take years to finish, would be assisted by the city of Columbus, which is poised to approve a plan to pay for $13.5 million in road, sewer and other public improvements in the area.

The city would create a large tax-increment financing district around the hospital so that property-tax revenue generated by new development and increased values would be diverted to pay for the improvements over 30 years. That includes widening Thomas Lane to better serve emergency vehicles and other traffic.

It also includes improving the intersection at Thomas Lane and Olentangy River Road and building roads and utilities for future development behind the McConnell Heart Health Center. Such development could include a hospice center and offices.

OhioHealth, the nonprofit corporation that operates Riverside, would pay the $13.5 million upfront for the public improvements. Revenue generated by development within the district would go to OhioHealth.

Hospital officials are vague as to what the expansion could include, when it could begin and how many years it would take to complete, although they have discussed with City Council a cancer center on Thomas Lane.

Peter Fleming, OhioHealth's vice president of real estate and construction, called the $150 million price tag cited in a letter to him from the city last year reasonably conservative, and he said the long-term expansion could ultimately cost as much as $500 million.

This year, OhioHealth opened eight lodges behind the McConnell Heart Health Center.

OhioHealth spokesman Mark Hopkins said the vacant land west of the center is big enough to hold a 60,000-square-foot office building if OhioHealth decides to build there.

The hospital also plans to tear down five buildings in the Whetstone Center complex across the street from Riverside. The hospital is considering replacing them with a 70,000-square-foot office building.

While Riverside and other hospital-related buildings are tax-exempt, other buildings with for-profit ventures are not. OhioHealth does not own all the property within the proposed district, but "all of the land within the district is influenced by Riverside," Fleming said.

OhioHealth has no current plans to develop property within the district's boundaries south of the Rt. 315 hospital curve and east of Olentangy River Road.

The tax abatements would not hurt Columbus City Schools, but they would affect other agencies that receive property-tax revenue, including the Columbus Metropolitan Library, Metro Parks, the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium and social-service agencies.

Legislation was introduced to Columbus City Council this week. The council plans to vote on it Oct. 5.

City Councilman Andrew Ginther, who leads the council's development committee, called the tax-increment financing plan a catalyst for the expansion.

"We're interested in good-paying jobs," Ginther said. "Medical services (are) a sector of the central Ohio economy that is growing."

Hospital officials have been talking with the city for at least a year to hammer out the deal.

Area residents generally have had no concerns with Riverside's development plans, said Vicky Stoddard, president of the Marburn neighborhood homeowners association and a secretary for the hospital's geriatric clinic.

Residents had opposed a developer's plan to build a 20,000-square-foot medical office building on property now occupied by a vacant 3,820-square-foot house along Olentangy River Road.

Plans for that building have been dropped.

The city has approved tax-increment financing for public improvements for a nonprofit hospital group before.

In 2005, the city approved a plan to help Mount Carmel Health System with its 20-year expansion along E. Broad Street near Mount Carmel East hospital. Mount Carmel said it would create 1,200 jobs.

The Riverside expansion follows similar plans at other area hospitals.

Two weeks ago, Mount Carmel Health System said it would spend $100 million over five years to build a heart center at Mount Carmel St. Ann's Hospital in Westerville, creating 200 jobs.

Last week, the Ohio State University board of trustees approved a $1 billion expansion of its Medical Center, the biggest in the hospital's history.

And Nationwide Children's Hospital is in the midst of an $800 million expansion to the west that is to be completed by 2012.

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