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After a year of deliberations and negotiations, Duke LifePoint has made its decision. It wants to relocate Marquette General Hospital to the Roundhouse property in Marquette.
A DLP executive will attend next Monday's City Commission meeting to make the proposal for the purchase of the property.
It is not a done deal yet. The City Commission must still accept the offer and details must still be worked out in a formal contract, but it seems highly unlikely that anybody or anything will stand in the way of a deal that means so much to the city of Marquette.
Here are some of the highlights of the proposed deal as listed in the Memorandum of Understanding:
Duke LifePoint would pay the city $4 million for the land containing
the Roundhouse site and the property on which the Municipal
Service Center stands. It's a total of 37 acres.
Duke LifePoint would drop its two Tax Tribunal cases against the city for the current Marquette General Hospital. That's a big relief to the city which was facing a major shortfall in tax revenues if DLP had succeeded at its Tax Tribunal.
The city would help DLP get a 12 year, 50% tax abatement on the
Roundhouse/MSC property.
The city would design and construct a roundabout or other signalized
entrance to the new hospital off of US 41. This would be located at
about 300 yards west of Grove Street on US 41, roughly connecting
the current MSC site and the Norlite Nursing Center.
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Grove Street. That means the surface intersection of US 41 and
Grove Street would be eliminated.
The city would realign Baraga Avenue to tie into Spring Street to
allow better access to the new hospital.
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Other major improvements would also have to be made--electrical, water, sewer, environmental and the like--but the deal, as it stands, has been agreed to by Duke LifePoint and a subcommittee of the City Commission.
Now, it'll be up to the full Commission to sign off on it.
The one essential piece of this agreement is that the entire development would be declared a Brownfield Project. In other words, it's being developed on devalued former industrial or railroad land.
The Brownfield designation would enable DLP to set up a so-called TIF district (tax increment financing) which would allow it and the city to recapture tax dollars on the property and pay for all of the infrastructure improvements. Total cost of all the changes and improvements: $30 million dollars.
The city seems confident that virtually none of the costs will be borne by the city's citizens.
It's long and complicated, to say the least, but the money men and women will figure it out.
Construction of the hospital and a medical office facility on the same campus will take about two years.
What happens to the old hospital and the current medical center? No answers yet.
One thing at a time.
You got news? Email me at briancabell@gmail.com
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This is very good news for the City of Marquette and bodes well for the continued prosperity of the city. Everyone involved in reaching this agreement has done a very good thing for the City of Marquette. Congratulations!!!
ReplyDeleteExcellent choice!
ReplyDeleteWorking solutions... lots of work involved, which is good to see, and the legal terms figured out is a good addition. In all it's good to see some progress. Still weird that a helipad will be in a residential area, but great to see that a two lane road will connect the hospital with the highway.
ReplyDeleteIt is residential, downtown, and high way frontage! I always figured this was the best choice. Hope they buy that crap on Washington st as well....storage buildings and vacant stuff next to luttys auto.......way to go city and dlp....
Deletewow, a fifty percent tax abatement AND TIF capture of taxes. A massive giveaway by the city. Marquette- you thought traffic at 7th and Washington was bad now? And, kiss third street/presque isle vitality away even more than at present. Oh, well. i'm confident the city is engaging in due dilligence, their handling of the LDFA or the tax abatement at the Co-op have been so exemplary. Not.
ReplyDeleteWonder how Baraga/Spring is getting done.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.google.com/maps/@46.5429379,-87.4097085,661m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en
Boy that looks like a small footprint. (see the pdf)
ReplyDeleteI wonder how many stories it is going to be. It looks like it is going to be way smaller than the current buildings.
It's a terrible shame. I know the City needs the revenue, but that's too much to give to a corporation that is already challenging every dollar they should legitimately pay in taxes. And the Roundhouse property is absolutely beautiful. It's a shame that every acre in the area save for Harlow Park will be developed. And if the Medical Center is also being replaced, how many piles of rubble are enough for DLP to leave in their wake? This is so obviously not a company with UP morality...their environmental stewardship is akin to big oil. Or mining. I am so disappointed.
ReplyDeleteIt can be a lot smaller because there's so many fewer staff members to accommodate.
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ReplyDeleteI see the roundabout and wonder what it is going to do to traffic patterns.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if Beacon house will move
I wonder what will happen to the old Hospital
I wonder what is going to happen to the Pen Med Cen
I wonder if this is going to make it necessary to reroute truck traffic.
We shall see...
Great, another 'roundabout' to slow down traffic on the bypass - which was created to keep traffic moving. Marquette will get snowed by high paid, smooth talking southern 'gentleman', eventually footing the bill for infrastructure which will get passed to us. IF they ever build this thing, I suspect there will be even less people employed than now, particularly in support positions. Marquette's 'middle class' is going to take another hit, which will take another when the power plant closes - and it is going to. The rich get richer....
ReplyDeleteanother roundabout is better than the intersection at grove and 41 now. roundabouts are prevelent elsewhere.
DeleteLets go for the trifecta and put one at the other end of the bypass in front of the Holiday Inn!
Deleteand in front of WalMart, then Lowes... How about Midway Drive?
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ReplyDeleteA serious question I've got is: How are all the businesses and homeowners and apartment dwellers that live south of 41 off of Grove Street going to access their residences from the south? Is the city anticipating major reconstruction to drive a collector/arterial over bothwell hill? My prediction is that the hidden costs in this project will be substantial. (minor edit for clarity) However, the revitalization of Washington street will likely be something positive out of all this.
ReplyDeleteAre you thinking about the neighborhood south of 41 between grove and McClellan? Not sure anything changes for them. The new grove overpass will allow homestead st to go under just as it connects(east) to Anderson st now. The new round about would allow for crossing 41. And of course you still have Wilson st for (west)and Forrest park drive for heading south.
DeleteFor the Author..... The proposed round about is where ward st is. Also, the maps do not show Baraga connecting to spring st. Baraga simply gets bumped south for one of the new buildings. It then comes back up to where it is in the residential neighborhood
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