City sells land to advance plans for Copper Sky medical campus

The City will sell three parcels of land adjacent to Copper Sky Regional Park for use in the development of a medical campus.

City Council voted 7-0 to approve the sale to S3 BioTech LLC, the developer.

The first parcel of 1.29 acres, which includes an existing 8,151-square-foot building at the southeast corner of West Bowlin Road and Greythorn Drive that formerly served as the police department’s dispatch center, was sold to was Copper Sky Rehabilitation and Recovery Group LLC, for $1.4 million. The building was used as a police substation and communications center, which opened in 2016 at a cost of about $450,000.

The second parcel of 3.53 acres at the southeast corner of Bowlin and Greythorn was purchased for $1.3 million by Copper Sky Extended Care Group LLC.

The final deal had Copper Sky Extended Care Group LLC, paying $290,763 for .89 acres at the southeast corner of North John Wayne Parkway and Bowlin.

S3 BioTech plans a medical campus with a specialty ER hospital of at least 100,000 square feet and 25 beds. The project would include medical service facilities, including an ambulatory surgery center, a catheterization lab and office space to house physician practices and other medical services.

Plans call for apartments, condominiums, a sports stadium, physical therapy center and an athletic training facility.

Construction could begin this year.

City councilmember Nancy Smith said a second hospital in the city will be a major benefit in multiple areas.

“More options in my opinion means more competition and better service,” Smith said. “Economic development can be stifled by a shortage of health care options, and this is improved by having enough health care. Also, the ancillary businesses that will grow around the hospital are important to economic development.”

The hospital would be run by Houston-based Nutex Health, which currently operates micro-hospitals in Chandler and Tucson. The company has 15 of its 24 hospitals in its home state of Texas, but has facilities in Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, New Mexico and Oklahoma, with four more in various stages of development.

The company operates micro-hospitals, free-standing emergency rooms and community hospitals.

Vice Mayor Vincent Manfredi said the project represents another level of development in Maricopa.

“Any type of commercial development is great, but something of this magnitude is game-changing because it will bring high-paying jobs and opportunity to the city,” Manfredi said.

Vince Manfredi is a co-owner of InMaricopa.