Arlie & Company

McKenzie-Willamette Medical Center is rapidly narrowing its search for a site on which to build a new hospital.

Eugene officials on Friday said the Springfield-based hospital has whittled its list of potential sites to five: three in Eugene and two in Springfield.

Eugene Mayor Kitty Piercy said the Eugene finalists are the University of Oregon Riverfront Research Park along Franklin Boulevard; a 20-acre parcel owned by Guard Publishing Co., publisher of The Register-Guard, on Chad Drive; and a 35-acre site on Coburg Road owned by the Eugene School District.

Emphasizing that the final decision on where to build the $234 million hospital rests with McKenzie-Willamette, Piercy said the Riverfront Research Park is attractive from the city’s perspective.

“Out of these three possibilities, the one that most closely fits the council’s priorities of having a hospital close to downtown and on (the south) side of the (Willamette) river is the research park site,” Piercy said, adding that McKenzie-Willamette officials “are interested in all three sites.”

Just last month, the city released a list of 13 potential Eugene sites that it had compiled for McKenzie-Willamette officials to help in their search for a new home in the Eugene-Springfield metropolitan area.

The city created the list after the hospital in January, citing land use obstacles, dropped plans to put its hospital off North Delta Highway.

Now that McKenzie-Willamette has shortened the list, Eugene officials said they are ready to make a serious move toward helping the hospital find a new spot.

At a meeting next Wednesday, city staff members will ask the City Council to choose its favorite site from the final three candidates, and authorize a study to find out how time-consuming and expensive it would be to put the hospital on the site the council prefers.

University of Oregon officials say they are willing to work with the city to study building a hospital at the research park.

But they point out that established park-development plans do not contemplate that sort of use.

“The Riverfront Research Park is a very successful, fullyfunctioning research park,” UO spokesman Phil Weiler said. “We have been asked by the city to prepare some information. ... There is a lot of work that needs to be done, as far as finding out if this site would work for a hospital. But we’re not going to dismiss it out of hand without having a dialogue first.”

According to information the city released last month, 33 acres of research park space could be used for a new hospital.

The research park idea — which the hospital considered briefly before picking the North Delta site in 2005 — might be controversial because it would eat up open space along the south bank of the Willamette River.

As Piercy noted last month, the Chad Drive and Coburg Road sites in northeast Eugene might appeal to doctors, because of the parcels’ proximity to PeaceHealth’s RiverBend medical center that will open later this year in the Gateway area of northwest Springfield. Doctors like to be able to travel quickly between hospitals.

The 20-acre Guard Publishing property appears to be too small for McKenzie-Willamette, which has said it wants a site of at least 25 acres, with the potential to expand beyond that.

Also, the publishing company says it is moving ahead with plans to build multitenant office space on the parcel, which is zoned for campus-industrial use and probably would have to be rezoned to accommodate a hospital.

At 35 acres, the school district’s Coburg Road property would be big enough for the new hospital. But district officials want to build a school there, which could make it untouchable to McKenzie-Willamette.

In addition to the three Eugene finalists, McKenzie-Willamette is believed to be considering two sites in Springfield, Eugene City Councilor Chris Pryor said.

Hospital spokeswoman Debi Farr would not confirm the number of locations the hospital is eyeing, although she did say the list has shrunk since McKenzie-Willamette resumed its site search in January.

“I can’t say it’s five,” Farr said. “But we knew all along as we went forward through our process that some sites would rise to the surface.”

And some of those properties are located east of Interstate 5 in Springfield and Glenwood.

“We’re still very interested in sites in Springfield,” Farr said. “At this point, there are sites in Springfield that meet our site criteria.”

Springfield City Manager Gino Grimaldi, who said last month that city officials spoke with hospital leaders about possible Springfield-area locations in the weeks before McKenzie-Willamette scrapped its North Delta plan, was tight-lipped Friday regarding the current state of affairs.

“That’s a discussion McKenzie-Willamette needs to have with the media,” Grimaldi said. “We continue to have discussions with them, but ultimately it’s their decision as to where the hospital should go.”

While they would like to decide as soon as possible, Farr said hospital officials still have some work to do.

“We, of course, hope to make an announcement soon,” she said. “But ultimately, we want to find the right site for the hospital and the community.”

Press Releases

Hospital shortens list of potential sites