City sells land for 2nd hospital, medical complex

Before Maricopa’s first hospital is completed, the city has cleared the way for another.

The city has sold a 4-acre parcel of land to S3 BioTech LLC for $1.38 million, City Manager Rick Horst announced at Tuesday’s city council meeting.

The developer plans to build a medical campus with a “specialty ER hospital” – it would be a minimum of 100,000 square feet and 25 beds – along Bowlin Road between John Wayne Parkway and North Graythorn Drive, near Copper Sky.

Other services could include an ambulatory surgery center, a catheterization lab and medical offices to house additional medical services and physicians’ practices.

But Horst said the campus could grow as large as 120 beds and 250,000 square feet, either by adding capacity during planning or through designed expansion.

“The agreement is for up to 250,000 square feet, but the truth is, if they want to go past 250 (thousand), it’s not going to hurt our feelings,” he said.

Meanwhile, construction continues on a community hospital to be operated by Exceptional Healthcare at John Wayne Parkway and Honeycutt Avenue. It will be the city’s first hospital when it opens.

Councilmember Vincent Manfredi said he was thrilled the city could offer residents another option for both emergency and in-patient care.

“Just a year ago having one hospital in the city of Maricopa was a dream,” Manfredi said. “But today we’re on the verge of having two, and possibly three. I could not be happier with this news.”

NEW 9-1-1 CALL CENTER

The parcel sale will fund a new 9-1-1 communications dispatch center in the city after officials ended a study on the feasibility of the city of Chandler operate a call center for Maricopa, Horst announced Tuesday. Instead, Maricopa now plans an 8,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art facility adjacent to the city’s planned 20,000-square-foot police station at Wilson and West Garvey avenues.

Two city police unions opposed the proposed partnership with Chandler. The City of Maricopa Police Association said closure of the city’s Emergency Communications Center would have been “catastrophic.”

Horst has again found a way to have one public works project pay for another as part of his strategy to avoid increased taxes, debt or depletion of the general fund.

“Funding for a new call center will come from the sale of land for this medical campus,” Horst said. “We anticipate that there will be other opportunities this will spur, and we’ll be able to sell some more of our land to meet those needs. Of course, we bought that land for development purposes, so we met our objectives: we wanted to protect what went there, we didn’t want non-taxpaying, non-job creating things going there, and now we’re selling it to meet community needs and create jobs.

By taking those proceeds from the sale and investing them in police and the dispatch center, the city is maximizing use of its money.

“We’re getting a lot done without hitting our savings account, without hitting the taxpayers with an increase, and without borrowing the money and paying interest,” he said.

Manfredi said he likes the idea of a top-quality 9-1-1 call center here in town – if it is done in a fiscally responsible way.

“These dispatch centers represent the front line of our first responders,” Manfredi said. “Providing them with an 8,000-square-foot facility, which is four times the size of the current call center, is appropriate. But we must look toward partnerships with other cities and towns in the area to help offset the cost.”

Horst said that although the city is adding another hospital, the deal does not preclude further negotiations with Banner Health and Dignity Healthcare, two major healthcare providers already looking at potential facilities in Maricopa.

“We’re happy to continue to work with them,” Horst said. “We’ve been working with all of our partners for a long time, and we appreciate them, but at the same time it is an open market and whoever wants to come to play comes and plays – and we need those new facilities.”

Construction on the medical campus could begin as early as this year, added Horst.

“They tell me they’re anxious to get started.”

Full disclosure: Vincent Manfredi is minority owner of InMaricopa.