Hernando: City wants hospital to stay put

City wants hospital to stay put

Brooksville Regional is looking at a site west of its current location.

By DAN DeWITT

BROOKSVILLE -- The Brooksville City Council has no legal power to force Brooksville Regional Hospital to stay in the city.

It can, though, express an opinion about the hospital's proposed move to a 95-acre parcel about 31/2-miles west of its current location -- and it did so at its meeting Monday night.

The council passed a resolution asking the hospital to upgrade its current building, on Ponce de Leon Boulevard just southwest of downtown, or to consider other sites in the city.

The idea behind the resolution, Mayor Joe Johnston III said, was to make an official action of the council members' prevailing opinion.

"Each of us, as individuals, has commented to the press or the county our opposition to it, but we had not taken any formal action," Johnston said.

The resolution also asks for the support of the Hernando County Commission, which has some power over the hospital. The company that has owned the hospital since 1998, Health Management Associates, a for-profit company based in Naples, rents the current building from the county. And, when the hospital announced it had bought on option on the new property in June, its officials said this 30-year lease represented the biggest potential obstacle to the move.

Tom Barb, the executive director of both Brooksville Regional Hospital and Spring Hill Regional Hospital, said the city's action was premature because the company has not made a proposal to the County Commission.

Also, he said, it shows a lack of understanding of the hospital business.

Improving the current building, "is kind of a waste of money," he said.

It sits on 11 acres, which is too small for a modern facility. The construction work, he said, "would basically drive patients away."

And the current location is too far removed from the existing population base, and from the area between the Suncoast Parkway and U.S. 41 that is expected to grow rapidly.

"The growth east of U.S. 41 is going to be a lot slower," he said. "When you're talking about a company that is going to invest $40-million to $50-million into a new property, that's a lot to invest on hopes that the area east (of the city) is going to grow."

The city, in its resolution, points out that urban hospitals operate large and modern facilities on smaller parcels than the one in Brooksville.

Two other hospitals, Spring Hill Regional and Oak Hill Hospital, already serve the west-side population. People in Brooksville and east of the city, it claims, will be without easy access to hospitals.

Also, it said, "abandoning the existing hospital and building a new facility at the proposed location promotes urban sprawl that will have a negative economic and social impact to the city of Brooksville and Hernando County."

The city will not lose property tax if the hospital moves, but will lose some intangibles tax revenue. It also fears that related businesses around the hospital, including doctors' offices, would follow the hospital west.