Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 5, 1995 TAG: 9501050032
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE:
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
Board members agreed the $12,000 to $15,000 engineering study, to be conducted by Anderson and Associates Inc., only will go forward if Radford Community funds it. And the board authorized Chairman Ira Long and Utilities Director Gary Gibson to negotiate with hospital officials on utility services.
At issue is how much it will cost to extend water and sewer service - and who will pay - now that Radford Community has changed the site of its proposed new hospital, still set to open in late 1998.
"We are pleased with the action taken by the Public Service Authority and we look forward to working with them," Susan Lockwood, the hospital's public affairs executive, said Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Radford Community has told state regulators it needs more time to prepare a certificate of need application for the new hospital, and will delay filing one until June. Earlier, the hospital had expected to file the application this week. Before the project can go forward, the hospital needs the certificate from the state.
The delay means the project would go up for a public hearing in August and for approval by the state health commissioner in December at the earliest, said Richard Roark, executive director of the Southwest Virginia Health Systems Agency.
The utilities question has two aspects: the water line would be extended nearly two miles up Virginia 177 from Rock Road at the Radford line; and sewer lines would be run under I-81 from the service authority's Bethel system, which is already linked to Radford's sewage treatment plant. Part of the engineering study would look at the cost of a pumping station, to get sewage uphill to Bethel.
For now, the Montgomery service authority board - made up of the same seven men who sit on the Board of Supervisors - believes Radford Community should bear those costs, which should exceed $400,000 for the water line alone.
"The question of underwriting the cost would be part of that discussion," Lockwood said.
Hospital officials also want to know how quickly the sewer and water line extensions could be completed, said County Attorney Roy Thorpe.
Radford Community's leaders have told engineers they expect to begin the design of the new hospital this year and to break ground by early next year, said Anderson and Associates Executive Vice President R.A. "Chip" Worley Jr.
To proceed that quickly, the Carilion Health Systems affiliate would need a rapid approval from the state regulators who will be reviewing the hospital's certificate of need application.
For the past five years, Montgomery and Radford officials have been working on the assumption that Radford Community would build a replacement hospital nearly a mile to the north of the new site, on land the hospital owns to the west of Virginia 177.
But hospital officials said last month they had taken out options on 110 acres off Barn Road and Tyler Road (Virginia 600), in what's today rolling pasture. The cost of grading the steep original site, along with a change in treatment philosophy that called for a more spread-out, single-story building, were key factors in the abrupt change of direction.
The change has alarmed Radford officials, who are worried it would shift the focus of related development away from a special zone in which the city and Montgomery County have agreed to share tax revenues. The new site is on the southern edge of that zone.
County service authority officials were among the first to find out about the changes, in a Dec. 9 meeting with Radford Community President and Chief Executive Officer Lester Lamb.
Joe Gorman, a service authority board member, asked if there was any way to "feel the pulse of the hospital" to determine if its leaders might change the new-hospital site again.
But Larry Linkous, an authority member and supervisors chairman, said he had dinner with Lamb and other hospital officials in mid-December and "they are serious" about the new site.
by CNB