HCA Strikes Again

A lot of this is why I'm wanting to quit this place altogether. Health Midwest (the previous managing company) were angels compared to this. I want out! If anybody knows of a good housekeeping position on the east coast, please let me know.. I'm a good worker, very efficient, I never miss a day, never ask for extra days off.. and I don't mind overtime..

===============================================

What becomes of old hospitals?

Commission ponders options
By David Tanner
The Examiner

"The highest and best service I see is one or both of these facilities can be converted, with help of TIF, into a residential senior care facility."

Dan Jones
CEO of HCA's Independence hospitals, on the future of the two existing hospitals, which will close when HCA builds its new Independence Regional Medical Center The tax increment financing plan for HCA to build a new hospital in Independence includes a $15 million fund to rehabilitate the city's two existing hospitals.

But if HCA and the city cannot find tenants for Independence Regional Health Center or Medical Center of Independence, the $15 million could be used to demolish the buildings.

City staff and HCA representatives on Wednesday presented the hospital TIF plan to the Independence TIF Commission.

If the numbers seem overwhelming � a $250 million hospital campus near 39th Street and Selsa Road and $44.3 in tax increment financing � they probably are.

Dan Jones, chief executive officer of the existing Independence hospitals and designated CEO for the new facility, said the new hospital plan is the largest single investment in HCA corporation history.
"It is the largest (private) project in the state of Missouri's history," he added.
"This will be nothing short of the most impressive health care facility developed in the metro area in the foreseeable past, and frankly the foreseeable future," Jones said.
Improved health care service has never been a contention, either by citizens or members of the City Council, but the project has faced opposition because of HCA's plans to move hospital services out of two hospitals and into a new building farther away from a dense and aging population in the city's north and west.
Jones and King spoke to the possible solutions.
"The highest and best service I see is one or both of these facilities can be converted, with help of TIF, into a residential senior care facility," Jones said.

King, who has facilitated several TIFs in Independence, said the $15 million rehabilitation fund in the TIF would be an incentive for private developers to convert IRHC or MCI into other uses.
There's also a reality to think about, King said.
"To put $15 million on the bottom line for HCA without TIF means lower profit and the project doesn't get done," he said.
Jones said $15 million is the number HCA and private contractors came up with as a worst-case scenario for demolishing both existing hospital buildings.
"Our estimated cost for turning those buildings back into green space would be $15 million," Jones said.

Local economic development experts with the city and the Independence Council for Economic Development say they don't want the worst-case scenario.
ICED President Tom Riederer said after the meeting his group would work to see the buildings get converted rather than demolished.
With the $15 million fund in the TIF for the existing hospitals, and more than $40 million in streets and off-site improvements around the proposed 39th Street campus, TIF commissioners are generally pleased with what they see in the plan.

"We're looking at 90 percent of this TIF going for off-site improvements," commission Chairman Pat Campbell said. "Most TIFs do more on-site. This one is going off-site, which is a good thing."
Jones said health care can be an economic catalyst in any municipality.
The city has used TIFs in the past to build up the 39th Street retail area from green space. In those green fields are limestone and shale that drive building costs up.
About $4 million of the HCA TIF is for construction costs, including removal of limestone and piering up new buildings on top of a layer of shale.

HCA has eyed the 86-acre site as a regional approach to health care, serving not only Independence, but also Blue Springs and cities to the south and east of Independence.
Citizens and several elected representatives are expected to speak at the formal TIF Commission public hearing, 6:30 p.m. next Thursday in the council chambers at City Hall, 111 E. Maple Ave.

HCA and the city have agreed on several points, either in the existing TIF plan or in an undrafted redevelopment plan.
HCA has agreed to put $100,000 into transportation funding, and $177,000 into William Yates Elementary School to handle future increases that come with area developments.

The new hospital would be in the Blue Springs School District, as are the other 39th Street TIF projects.
King said the new hospital property was assessed in 2003 at $44,100, and generated only $800 in taxes.
With the new hospital and the TIF plan, King said, the property would be assessed at $56.5 million and generate $5 million in taxes.
The anticipated 18-year TIF would capture half of the new taxes to pay for unique development costs, such as the limestone removal, the Little Blue Parkway, Jackson Drive and several new streets, and for dealing with the existing hospital buildings.

Jones said if HCA were to redevelop the IRHC and MCI sites into new hospitals or consolidated into one new hospital, construction costs would increase 50 to 70 percent.
He also justified moving to the 39th Street location to suit the corporation's mission.
"This location provides for equal access for all residents in our service area, both from geographical standpoint and population standpoint," Jones said.

King summarized why HCA requires tax increment financing to get the job done.
"The reason we're here with a TIF plan is not primarily to assist HCA with this hospital, it's to address concerns of citizens," King said.
But with two existing hospitals closing and possibly being demolished in the future, King's point did not sit well for some of the citizens.

"I don't like it at all," Independence senior Catherine Curtis said. She helped state Sen. Victor Callahan draft a petition over the summer to oppose HCA's plan.
City officials expect a large crowd at next week's public hearing.