LaFayette DDA acquires clinic
The LaFayette Downtown Development Authority now owns the new Community Wellness Center, located off East Villinow Street next to Professional Park, from the city.
During their April 10 meeting, the LaFayette City Council unanimously agreed to sell the recently purchased former Hutcheson building — currently being transformed into a wellness center staffed by CHI Memorial Hospital — to the city’s DDA.
“That’s how it (DDA) gets its name, the development authority, because it is to develop industry, trade, job creation, job maintenance and industrial expansion,” city attorney Ron Womack said during the meeting.
Womack explained the DDA’s purchase allows financing the project without using tax revenues and general obligation bonds.
State laws allow the local DDA to issue bonds that will be repaid over a period of years, something the city cannot do on its own.
No taxes will be used for this capital outlay. Instead, the money paid over the next seven years by CHI Memorial, as part of its leasing agreement, will pay off the $250,000 purchase price.
Womack told the council that this sale to the DDA is purely a transactional mechanism, one that lets the city accomplish its purpose of bringing a medical facility to the community without burdening local taxpayers.
The clinic is separated into three sections. The south wing will be used for convenient care for acute medical needs that allow for walk-ins. The center wing will be used as an extension of Professional Park Associates’ primary care which will continue using the space it now occupies.
City Manager David Hamilton said the clinic will open in three phases. First will be an expansion from CHI Memorial’s primary care, second will be convenient care and finally specialty physicians will provide services at the complex.
The goal is for the clinic to open in late spring or early summer.