STEVENS POINT, Wis. (WSAU) — A step was taken towards allowing St. Michael’s Hospital in Stevens Point to expand to the north. Stevens Point’s Plan Commission voted to vacate one block of Prais Street and to remove it from the city maps. That section of street is already closed to public, and is a pedestrian mall and the front entrance drop-off area for the hospital.
St. Michael’s Hospital Vice President of Operations Cherrie Marti told the commissioners it is very early in the planning process, but if all goes well, would like to break ground before the frost. “This is really in the early stages, and we’re looking at just trying to show you conceptually the footprint of where we are looking to build, and it would be to the north into the north parking lot. It would go over Prais Street.”
The expanded Oncology unit would be built in the southeast corner of the existing hospital parking lot, and could be expanded to multiple stories later if needed.
Marti says the demand for cancer treatment services is growing rapidly. The preliminary plans call for connecting the new building with a walkway to the existing radiation oncology department, so they can keep those patients in the same part of the hospital without spending over 3 million dollars to move the linear accelerator. They would also leave a green space where the Praise Street pedestrian area is now as a possible site for a second accelerator. “We’ve looked at the volumes for the future over the next ten to fifteen years, and if we need to have a second linear accelerator, we’d like to leave this space because a linear accelerator, the vault, is very challenging to put that in there.”
Plan Commission members were concerned about parking, which is in short supply around the hospital and the adjacent university campus. Cherrie says they are prepared to make adjustments for both handicapped and regular parking. “We’ll have to adjust our parking, and maintain that parking lot for our patients and our visitors, so our staff who may be parking in that front lot will be adjusted to our off-site location.”
Mayor Mike Wiza believes St. Michael’s Hospital has a solid plan to handle the changes in parking at their facility. “This is an example of an employer in the area that has done a, what I consider, a fantastic job of keeping the parking problem at bay, and more importantly, offering alternatives to their associates by having that off-site lot and actually providing a shuttle service.”
Plan Commissioners approved the vacating of the street, but they will eventually have to review the hospital’s plans. Cherrie and a representative of the design team took several suggestions about parking, pedestrian access, and sight lines facing west towards St. Stanislaus Catholic Church.
There are several levels of approval needed before the hospital can begin the project.
