CLARKSBURG -- For more
than 10 months, United Hospital Center President Bruce Carter
has been working on finalizing a deal to purchase land for
possible future expansion.
After meeting for more
than two hours Tuesday, the hospital's board of directors
approved Carter's recommendation to purchase about 125 acres
of land from Dr. Saad Mossallati and the Pierson family for
slightly more than $3.8 million.
"Forward thinking by our
volunteer board of directors preserves options for our
hospital's future without committing us at this time," Carter
said after the vote. Thirteen members voted in favor of the
resolution, while three abstained because of conflicts of
interest. Four members either were absent or left
early.
The property is an
undeveloped site just south of Jerry Dove Drive, bordered on
the east and west by Interstate 79 and the FBI fingerprint
complex.
Just purchasing the land
does not mean that UHC definitely is moving, Carter said.
This purchase is a
necessary expense to ensure that suitable land is available
for future expansion, he said. One of the main reasons for
pursuing the purchase now was because it was difficult to find
suitable land, Carter said. If the board had waited or even
put the decision onto a future board, there may not have been
any suitable tracts left.
UHC officials needed to
find at least 100 acres of suitable property that met several
other criteria, such as good access to main roads and utility
access.
Several options exist for
UHC, including constructing an entirely new hospital,
renovating the existing hospital and building a free-standing
outpatient clinic to free up some more room inside UHC, Carter
said.
Creating a new hospital is
the most costly of the options, he said, while renovating the
hospital may not be possible due to lack of space. Building an
outpatient center would let hospital officials move some
services out of UHC and free up some space in the hospital, he
said.
Even if the decision is
made to move the hospital, that probably would not happen for
a decade or more. This purchase is preparing for the future,
he said, not writing it in stone.
"There are two separate
issues here and I think it's important to differentiate
between the two," he said. "One, there is the selection and
purchase of the site. Two, there is the actual move itself.
Just because we do one doesn't mean the other will
happen.
"Some people will ask why
we would purchase the land now if we're not going to move
immediately. They'll conclude that we're moving, which is
absolutely not true," Carter said. "The decision to move will
probably be made by some future board and some future
administration. If we waited until then to buy land, there
would be no options. This just gives us some room to work
with."
Now that the site has been
selected, the next step is for the board to complete a
comprehensive space plan, Carter said. That plan involves
addressing current and future space needs at
UHC.
While it will be up to the
board to decide which option is most attractive to pursue,
Carter said building a free-standing clinic and renovating
parts of the existing hospital seem to make the most financial
sense.
The biggest problem with
building nothing on the new site and simply renovating the
existing hospital is that the site is too small, he said. Some
kind of expansion is needed and the current location does not
allow for that, he said.
"The current campus is
extremely constrained and some sections are now more than 40
years old," he said. "UHC has grown tremendously over the past
two decades and the hospital is developing into a rural
referral center for about 150,000 people in a 10 county
region. There is inadequate space for planned health care
services and highway access is extremely
poor.
"With a site secured, we
can now turn our planning attention to reviewing our options
and the associated costs."
Carter said it would be
several months, if not longer, before any decision is
made.
Staff writer James Fisher
can be reached at 626-1446 or by e-mail at
jfisher@exponent-telegram.com
