HOSPITAL
development, said during a visit to The Dispatch on Wednesday. Other hospitalowned buildings will stay. All the work now planned should be finished by April 2020.
About 50 percent of Mount Carmel West’s hospital patients come from the Grove City area in southwestern Franklin County, Mount Carmel West President Sean McKibben said, with only 3 percent coming from the surrounding neighborhood.
McKibben said part of the hospital footprint could be redeveloped into affordable housing. An urban farm is another idea.
Mount Carmel will keep the four parking garages, and their 2011 parking spaces, on the 37-acre campus, which McKibben said can be an economic-development driver for the site.
“I’m excited about the possibilities,” McKibben said.
Mount Carmel West staff members and city of Columbus officials already have been told of the plans by health system officials, who met Tuesday with Franklinton leaders and residents.
The equivalent of 1,500 full-time employees will move to the Grove City hospital, with just 300 staying in Franklinton.
Columbus Development Director Steve Schoeny said he remains concerned about what the economic impact on the neighborhood will be.
He called Mount Carmel’s plan for the campus “a first step.” As for the idea of affordable housing, Schoeny said city officials are always looking to make sure there are mixedincome neighborhoods.
“I think the key is going to be when an economicdevelopment partner comes in,” he said. “There are a lot of ideas there. It’s still really preliminary.”
Trent Smith, who leads the Franklinton Board of Trade and the Franklinton Area Commission, said that, in general, community members seem pleased with the project’s direction.
He said he was happy to hear that there will be a bigger emphasis on the College of Nursing and the expansion of the Healthy Living Center, as well as a new emergency center.
The College of Nursing now has 1,200 students, a number that is expected to grow by 200 to 400 students over the next three to five years. The emergency department in Franklinton has 65,000 visits a year, nearly 65 percent of those coming from
the surrounding community. The ER will move to the now-vacant surgery center on Green Street.
Smith is hoping more nursing students will live in the neighborhood.
While Franklinton will never get away from the concern about jobs leaving the area, many Mount Carmel employees today do not go to lunch, nor shop, in the neighborhood. He said keeping the parking garages will help lead to redevelopment.
Judy Box, a long-time neighborhood resident and area commissioner, said she realizes that Mount Carmel is moving to follow its patients. “They are doing what’s best for their business,” she said.
But Box is concerned because Mount Carmel officials told the community that only one primary-care physician and a nurse practitioner will remain on the campus. And she worries about older residents who will soon have to travel longer distances for care.
Lower Lights Christian Health Center will continue to operate a clinic in a building on the Mount Carmel West campus. Ann Schiele, Lower Lights’ chief strategy officer, said she expects their services to grow there.