Commission OKs hospital's project

0 Comments | La Crosse Tribune, May 01, 2001 | by Kent, Joan

Franciscan Skemp Healthcare will become the first La Crosse institution to build a parking ramp if the La Crosse Common Council agrees with the city's Plan Commission.

On Monday, the commission approved rezonings and conditionaluse permits that will allow the medical facility to construct a multimillion-dollar building project including a parking ramp.

Construction of the ramp, the first phase of the project, would begin by late summer or early fall. The 350-stall parking ramp for employees, on vacant property between Market and Ferry streets, will cost $3.5 million to $3.8 million, said Ronald Paczkowski, executive vice president.

Hospital officials chose to build a ramp rather than more surface parking lots partly as a "response to the needs of the community and of the immediate neighborhood," Paczkowski told the La Crosse Tribune. "We have been in the neighborhood for over 130 years. We feel this is a responsible plan and enhances the neighborhood around the campus."

Franciscan Skemp has decided to maintain the La Crosse campus as the "hub of our health-care services," he told the commission. The project will include a threestory building for surgery and emergency services on a parking lot east of the current main facility.

"The city has been requesting and the public has been questioning the expansion of surface parking lots rather than the construction of parking ramps by institutions for many years," City Planner Larry

Kirch said in recommending the rezoning. "The construction of a parking ramp at this institution is hoped to be the first of several ramps serving institutional uses."

Immediate plans call for the demolition of a house at 946 Ferry St. to construct the parking ramp. Two other single-family dwellings, at 1015 Ferry St. and 630 S. 1011 St., will be demolished for the project, and two apartments, at 930 S. 11th St. and 1005 Jackson St., will be relocated or demolished.

On another matter, the commission approved a proposal to allocate $300,000 in ore to buy the Mobil Oil property on Copeland Avenue. The city has set aside $1 million for the purchase, Kirch said. But, he said, some of the money has been used for environmental audits and appraisals.

An old appraisal put the value at $1.1 million, said City Attorney Pat Houlihan.

A moratorium on transferring property, which resulted when Exxon and Mobil merged, ends by 2002, so the city "must be poised to purchase the property" to carry out a redevelopment plan for the site, Kirch said.

The city might need to take the property by eminent domain or condemn the property, which would make the city less liable for cleanup, Houlihan said. "They have had other inquiries, so if we want to buy it, we should do it."

The commission also approved buying the former Heileman warehouse at Second and King streets from First Supply group for about $1.3 million, Sam Solverson and Richard Becker, the two council members on the commission, voted against it, with Becker saying it would be cheaper to build the storage buildings."

The city has about $300,000 for the purchase and would need to borrow the rest from the State Trust Fund, Houlihan said.

The warehouse initially would be used for cold storage by the police and fire departments and La Crosse Center and later would be a redevelopment site. The building would pay for itself as part of it could be rented, Kirch maintained.

The commission also approved a proposal to determine the cost of acquiring land or easements for a permanent floodwater levee protection system.