Gundersen plans major expansion

0 Comments | La Crosse Tribune, Oct 15, 1998

Gundersen Lutheran Medical Center announced plans Wednesday for a $120 million expansion project over the next 10 years at its main campus in La Crosse that includes a cancer center and a $10 million parking ramp.

The project includes construction of a new six-story building next to the Founder's Building across South Avenue--now a parking lot--and a five-story parking ramp with an attached skyway over South Seventh Street extending north into a parking lot.

Under the plan, Gundersen Lutheran has an agreement with the city and the Wisconsin Department of Transportation to close South Seventh Street where it passes the clinic and relocate the street one block north by the summer of 2000.

Gundersen Lutheran will attach a building to the clinic and hospital to house the trauma and emergency center where the main hospital entrance is now located, said John Kelly, the hospital's vice president of operations. Urgent care will join emergency services in the building. The helped, where the MedLink Air helicopter lands and takes off, will move next to the building to provide easier access for all emergency services.

Also on the first floor will be a state-of-the art imaging facility that will include MRI and CT scanners. The second story will house expanded surgical services.

The hospital entrance will be moved to the north, on the same side of the two clinic entrances, which will be across from the parking ramp.

Other plans include a wellness center for prevention services and health promotion next to the industrial rehabilitation building on Sims Place. The hospital also plans to build a "hospital," a small motel for patients who need to be near the hospital and their families.

All expansion plans are on existing land on Gundersen Lutheran's main campus.

Kelly said the plan has been in the works for 2M years and will be the first time Gundersen Lutheran will have an integrated medical facility since the clinic and the hospital merged in 1995.

"This is our long-term vision," Kelly said. "We just don't have enough space to carry out our mission as we continue to add services and grow."

Kelly said the first phase of the project will be the cancer center building. Construction will begin next year, followed by the emergency and trauma center.

He said the plans should relieve parking problems in the area and allow traffic to flow more safely and smoothly.

Gundersen Lutheran had been criticized for plans to tear down more houses to create more parking lots, but Kelly said a parking ramp that can provide space for more than 1,000 vehicles has been in the long-range plans for several months.

Kelly said the city and neighbors preferred that Gundersen Lutheran build a parking ramp, and the medical center seriously considered that input from civic groups and neighborhoods.

"But parking ramps are not cheap," Kelly said. He said he does not know how the ramp will be funded. Dr. Philip Dahlberg, Gundersen Lutheran president, said it has not been decided whether patients will have to pay a parking fee there.

Kelly said the medical center will gain 1,000 parking spaces with the ramp and will retain 200 spaces in the current north lot.

That should take care of the projected 1,200 to 1,300 parking spaces needed in 10 years, he said.

He also said Gundersen Lutheran wanted a quality ramp that would last 50 or 60 years.

La Crosse Mayor John Medinger said Gundersen Lutheran is the first nonprofit organization to build a parking ramp in La Crosse. "The building of a ramp shows Gundersen Lutheran is listening to the community," Medinger said. He said city dollars will not be used to help pay for the ramp.

"The project is all very positive and wonderful for La Crosse." Medinger said. "It shows Gundersen Lutheran's tremendous commitment to its facility and that part of town. The expansion of services means good jobs and good services for the community."

Dahlberg said the expansion plans were made independent of any decision to build a northsouth road through La Crosse. Governing boards at the medical center favor the proposed north-south road, but Dahlberg said the changes on South Seventh Street and construction will occur with or without a new road.

He said the expansion project will bring new staff, services and technology to the medical center. The economic impact is huge, he said, adding Gundersen Lutheran is already the largest employer with the largest payroll and is the largest taxpayer in La Crosse.

"It will improve access to patients and reduce the waits," Dahlberg said. He said the medical center cannot expand services or add staff without more space.

Services between the clinic and hospital will be better coordinated and integrated with further remodeling, Kelly said. All women's health services and cardiac services will run along the same floors of the clinic and hospital, he said.

A third-floor skyway from the parking ramp will keep patients inside and will be connected to the third-floor skyway from the clinic to the Founder's Building that crosses South' Avenue.