An exterior view of Columbus Regional Hospital in Columbus, Ind., pictured, Tuesday, March 31, 2020. Mike Wolanin | The Republic
Columbus Regional Hospital and city leadership are close to finalizing a master plan for approximately 700 acres of hospital-owned property on Bartholomew County’s west side.
A market study of the property has shown that in addition to healthcare, the main development opportunities for the site include residential, mixed-use commercial and retail, office space, hotel and tourism, and “civic, community, and green space,” CRH officials said Wednesday in an interview with The Republic.
In a new development, hospital officials said once the master plan for the site is completed, city officials will consider its adoption as an element of the city of Columbus’s Comprehensive Plan, which provides guidance for future land use and development in the community.
In 2018, the hospital purchased 800 acres of farmland on the west side of the county for about $11 million from the Stadler family. The property stretches east-to-west from Interstate 65 almost to State Road 11/Jonesville Road, and is south of the westside Walmart and north of the Bartholomew County 4-H Fairgrounds.
Prior to purchasing the property, the hospital had just completed a facilities master planning process launched in 2015, said CRH President and CEO Jim Bickel. As part of that work, they considered expanding CRH’s 17th Street campus.
“We came to the conclusion that this campus wasn’t going to meet our long-term needs for a number of reasons,” he said. These reasons included remapping of flood areas, the site being land-locked by residential properties and the age of different pieces of the (hospital) facility (on 17th Street).
This led hospital officials to consider whether an agricultural property would be a better site for a new or expanded health campus, with about 100 to 150 acres as their target size.
However, the Stadler family did not want to sell their land in smaller parcels, said Bickel. They eventually reached an agreement wherein the hospital would buy the whole site and sell about 100 acres back to members of the family who wished to retain part of the land.
Since the hospital still ended up with more land than they needed, they decided to work with local stakeholders to look at the future of the property.
“Shortly after Columbus Regional Health acquired the land in 2018, a multidisciplinary Land-Use Planning Committee was launched to create a vision for the property,” CRH officials said. “The committee — comprised of CRH, city and county government, city planning and engineering departments, and economic development — engaged Design Workshop, an international architecture, economics and urban design firm, to guide the process and conduct a market study.”
Bickel said that as they went through the process, officials sought to determine where CRH might locate a “future health campus” on the site, as well as what community needs could be met with the rest of the acreage.
“Even though the pandemic sort of slowed things down and distracted us on some other priorities, as we all know too well, we did complete that land use planning engagement with Design Workshop, at least the phases that we had launched into, and came up with our vision for the property,” said Bickel.
CRH then spoke to city officials about the next steps of formalizing this vision, which led to a discussion about the possibility of adopting a “comprehensive master plan” for the site and incorporating it into the city’s Comprehensive Plan.
The Comprehensive Plan is a long-term statement of a community’s vision for its future, according to the city’s planning department. The plan provides goals, policies, and other guidance for future land use and development.
The Comprehensive Plan is a separate document from zoning and subdivision control ordinances. It is intended to influence, but not mandate, community land use and development decisions.
CRH spokeswoman Kelsey DeClue noted that the Stadler family was reluctant to break up the property into smaller parcels because they didn’t want it to be “haphazardly developed.”
“This approach gives us the opportunity to steward that as the new owners of the land and to work with our community partners,” she said. “We know how to do it. We’re doing it with NexusPark. It’s kind of that same approach, of how does it align with our vision as a health system and what we want and wish for the community that we all live and work and play in and have called home for more than 105 years.”
City/county planning director Jeff Bergman said that the nearly 700-acre westside property is not currently within Columbus city limits, and annexation would be a prerequisite to its development. He also noted that the land is very close to downtown Columbus and the city’s “Front Door” off of I-65.
“Just the scale of it and proximity to the rest of the city is really significant,” he said. “And then I think you add to that how the city has grown over the years, and this piece of property, in a lot of ways, is almost surrounded by the city at some point, if we think about downtown, relative to Tipton Lakes, relative to some of the development that’s happening along (County Road) 200S. So as the city has grown in a lot of ways, this becomes almost an infill site for us, that it’s already sort of within that larger sphere of the city and has been maybe an untapped resource for development for some time.”
However, there are some challenges with the site. Bergman said these include some access limitations and floodplain areas. The site is also within the capture area for nearby Columbus City Utilities drinking water wellfields.
Bergman said that the city’s Comprehensive Plan acts as a general guide for “long-term city growth,” and more specific pieces have been added to the plan over time, such as the State Street Corridor and the Central Avenue Corridor. CRH’s master plan of its westside property could similarly be adopted into the city’s Comprehensive Plan as a small area plan.
He said that next steps will include deciding whether this is an appropriate addition to the city’s Comprehensive Plan and whether the city and CRH have a shared long-term vision for the westside property. They also plan to present site plan information to the community and seek their feedback.
“The land use planning work on this property is not happening in a vacuum,” Bergman added, stating that the existing Comprehensive Plan provides guidance about the site.
For instance, the property has been seen as a “linchpin” toward providing better north-south connections in this part of the community, he said.
In discussing potential uses for the portions of the property that will not feature health care, Mayor Jim Lienhoop said that housing, especially residential units of all kinds, is a community need and should possibly be prioritized.
“But as Jeff mentioned, you’ve got a railroad nearby, you’ve got some floodplain issues that impede or encroach on the property, and so those have to be responded to in some kind of fashion,” he said. “At the same time, we are kind of limited with respect to ground for industrial development. And I’m not suggesting that this should be a use for here, but it’s something to consider. And so by approaching the planning department and Jeff Bergman’s team, we’re able to provide that kind of overview as to where we think this ground could be best used for the community.”
When asked about CRH’s plans for their portion of the site, Bickel said that there’s a lot that has yet to be determined, and they’re not sure on the future of their current 17th Street location. He added that the hospital is making a “significant investment” in the city’s midtown area and plans to continue its presence there in some capacity.
“I think, when that comes to an inpatient facility, that we know given the age of our current facility, that’s got to be one of those things that we look most likely to replace,” said Bickel. “We just really cannot renovate our current patient, inpatient tower effectively and efficiently in that regard. … But healthcare’s becoming more than just hospital inpatient care. So much of it is moving into the outpatient setting.”
He added that the pandemic accelerated the digital side of healthcare and that growth in this area is expected to continue. These and other factors, such as consumer and patient expectations, will have to be taken into account in planning for the future.
Hospital officials emphasized they are looking at a long-term timeline for developing the westside property.
Bickel said that there is no “imminent facility plan” for CRH’s portion of the property yet, though they have had some “exploratory” discussions with an architect the hospital keeps on retainer.
“This is really a long-term plan for us,” he said. “And this master plan is really sort of foundational to that property before we even get to — because there’s no infrastructure on this piece of property yet.”
“This is a multi-decade sort of evolution,” said CRH Vice President of Strategic Facilities Planning and Operations David Lenart. “Nothing’s going to happen in a couple of years.”
In terms of next steps, he said that CRH is starting to a complete “a lot of the details” for the long-term vision shown in the site plan and expects to present the plan to city department heads later this month to seek their input. They will then present information to the public and seek their feedback, most likely in late May.
Bergman said that adopting the site master plan as an element of the city’s Comprehensive Plan will require a hearing and recommendation from the Columbus Plan Commission, and approval from Columbus City Council. According to Lenart, the hospital and city will likely pursue this sometime in the “subsequent months” following May.
City officials expressed appreciation for being included in the planning process.
“Our community is well-served by a strong, locally-managed healthcare institution,” said Lienhoop. “And so from a mayor’s perspective, to see them planning for the next 100 years is heartening. … We should all take some comfort in the fact that CRH is planning for the future.”
