P&Z green-lights reduced St. Luke’s roadwork
‘Financially necessary’ office building, daycare center, in the
works
By TRAVIS PURSER
Express Staff Writer
St. Luke’s hospital cleared a major hurtle toward opening its doors
this winter by gaining approval from the county planning and zoning commission to operate
with an adjacent three-lane highway, rather than a previously agreed upon five-lane road.
County P&Z made that decision Thursday during an unusually packed, 4
1/2 hour meeting at the old Blaine County courthouse in Hailey.
The highway change comes in the form of a proposed amendment to St.
Luke’s original 1998 county permit to build and operate a hospital in the McHanville
area south of Ketchum. The amendment must now go before county commissioners for final
approval.
During Thursday’s meeting, P&Z also considered an application by
St. Luke’s to build and operate a 40,000-square-foot medical office building next to
its nearly completed hospital.
Further consideration of the office building proposal was postponed to May
18 at 6:30 p.m.
A third St. Luke’s building—a day-care facility for hospital
employees—is currently in the nascent stages of planning, hospital officials
disclosed.
Concerning the highway agreement, one major kink remains to be resolved.
That is the degree of responsibility St. Luke’s has toward an eventual five-lane
expansion, if and when the Idaho Transportation Department decides to expand the road to
five lanes throughout the county.
Despite St. Luke’s 1998 agreement with the county to pay for five
lanes, the hospital’s lawyer, Joanne Butler, says St. Luke’s "fair
share" of the highway work is the cost of expanding to three lanes, not five.
P&Z commissioners and members of the public, however, said they want
some assurance from St. Luke’s that the county will not have to eventually pay for
highway improvements made necessary by the hospital.
St. Luke’s and the county are expected to reach a final agreement on
that issue in the coming weeks.
If all goes as currently planned by St. Luke’s, the new hospital will
open in December with a 2,000-foot stretch of three-lane highway running north and south
of the intersection at Highway 75 and Broadway Run.
St. Luke’s drawings show at the intersection a four-way, fully
actuated signal that automatically adjusts its timing with fluctuations in traffic levels.
The hospital plans to build a 600-foot acceleration lane to the south and
a 250-foot left-hand turning lane from the south, because, according to St. Luke’s
architectural planner Jeff Hull, 75 to 80 percent of hospital employees will come from the
south.
Planners say they will illuminate the intersection with quadruple
400-watt, high-pressure, sodium bulbs mounted on 25-foot-high standards.
St. Luke’s officials declined to say whether the lighting was
consistent with lighting at other rural intersections.
Ketchum P&Z staff member Torry Canfield said the maximum wattage of
bulbs along Highway 75 is usually 250 watts. However, St. Luke’s architectural
planner Hull said the hospital could not decrease its proposed wattage because hospital
engineers had "liability issues."
St. Luke’s officials said their reduced highway commitment is the
result of a Catch-22. Because plans for a county-wide five-lane expansion have been
shelved, ITD does not have the authority to approve the purchase of needed land for the
expansion, St. Luke’s said.
Sheriff’s deputy Gene Ramsey, though clearly in favor of five lanes,
perhaps summed up the feelings of most in attendance Thursday when he said, "This is
probably as good as it’s going to get."
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Just after P&Z approved the highway amendment, St. Luke’s CEO Jon
Moses made an impassioned argument for the financial value of St. Luke’s proposed
medical office building.
"This facility is far beyond a want; it’s a need," he said.
"As a not-for-profit hospital, this hospital needs to be operated on a financially
sound basis."
Without the medical office building, the hospital will be financially
unsound, Moses said. A financially unsound hospital, he said, is forced to cut corners,
forgo providing new services and offer a reduced level of care.
After a similar presentation by St. Luke’s vice president Gary
Fletcher that also emphasized the financial need for the office building, P&Z chairman
Tom Bowman said the commission would have to disregard their comments.
"When you say the medical office building is financially tied to the
project, that may be true," Bowman said, "but state code does not allow us to
make a determination based on that."
Commissioners agreed, however, the office building is integral to the
functioning of the hospital as long as St. Luke’s owns and operates the building.
That determination was the first of many standards P&Z must consider before approving
or denying the application.
Discussion of remaining factors was delayed until the May 18 meeting.
