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VA OFFERED LAND FOR NEW ORLEANS HOSPITAL --
Ochsner Health System has offered up a piece of
land where the federal government could
build a new hospital for veterans.
Story here...
http://blog.nola.com/
times-picayune/2007/05/ochsn
er_offers_site_for_va_hos.html
Story below:
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OSCHNER OFFERS SITE FOR VA HOSPITAL
By Kate Moran
Staff Writer
As the city and state strive to keep the veterans hospital in downtown
New Orleans, where it has helped anchor the medical district for
decades, a local health care giant has offered a proposal that could
pull the hospital to another part of the region.
Ochsner Health System has offered up a piece of land where the federal
government could build a new hospital for veterans, who have had to
travel all over the south for medical care since their old hospital on
Perdido Street flooded during Hurricane Katrina.
Lawrence Van Hoose, senior vice president for external relations,
declined to say whether Ochsner had land available on its Jefferson
Highway campus or on one of several satellite properties it bought after
Katrina, including the former Memorial Medical Center on Napoleon
Avenue.
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs put out a call in last month for
agencies that could assemble between 25 and 75 acres of open land for
the new hospital. The property had to be in Jefferson Parish or in New
Orleans west of the Industrial Canal. It also had to be on the east bank
of the river.
Proposals had to be turned in on Monday, but a VA spokesman declined
this week to say how many offers the federal government had received.
At least two suitors have come forward on their own to confirm they are
competing to work with the federal government: Ochsner and Louisiana
State University, which recently formed a partnership with the city of
New Orleans and another state agency to offer land between Canal Street
and Tulane Avenue where the federal government could build.
LSU and the VA have been negotiating for months to build adjoining
hospitals that would share laundry and laboratory services. The sister
hospitals were supposed to be built on 37 acres bounded by Tulane,
Canal, Claiborne Avenue and Galvez Street -- until the VA announced last
month it would entertain offers to build on another site.
Jim Nicholson, the VA secretary, has said his agency began looking for
alternatives because budget battles in the state threatened to delay
construction of the new LSU teaching hospital.
The state and the city are now trying to hold on to the VA hospital by
offering 34 acres next to the original 37-acre parcel where the federal
government can proceed while the state debates how large and how
expensive the LSU hospital should be. The new site is bounded by Tulane,
Canal, Galvez and South Rocheblave Street.
Neither the city nor the state owns that land yet. Most of the
neighborhood is residential, with a few large commercial buildings
sprinkled in -- including the abandoned Dixie brewery on Tulane Avenue
and the former City Hall annex on Canal Street.
The annex has been closed since 1999, and the city sold it in October to
a partnership that includes Cesar Burgos, the president of the Regional
Transit Authority board. If the hospital proposal moves forward, the
city and state will be in the position of having to buy it back.
In all, the city and the state would have to acquire 188 private
properties north of Galvez Street to present an unbroken piece of land
where the VA could erect its hospital. Nine of those are blighted, and
several more have overdue property taxes, according to a map produced by
the city's Office of Technology.
Mayor Ray Nagin and the state have agreed that the state would front the
money to buy the property. If owners in the neighborhood refuse to sell,
the state would invoke its powers of eminent domain to take the land.
After the state acquires title to the land, the city would reimburse it
for the cost of buying it.
Nagin called a press conference Tuesday to announce that his
administration had forged a partnership with the state and other local
agencies, including the Regional Planning Commission, to keep the VA
hospital downtown. At the time, he refused to discuss key details of the
plan, including how much it might cost to buy the land north of Galvez.
The city's partners later released the written proposal they had filed
with the VA. In that proposal, they estimate that the 34 acres is worth
roughly $50 million. The proposal also includes letters from three
investment banks that have expressed interest in extending the city up
to $100 million in credit to buy the land.
Although that proposal is a public document, the Nagin administration is
treating it as if it were confidential. A spokesman for the mayor has
refused even to acknowledge the location of the land the city hopes to
make available to the VA.
The spokesman, James Ross, also declined to release any information
about how the city would find the money to pay for the land.
"As this remains a competitive process subject to negotiations, we will
not provide this information at this time," Ross said in an e-mail. "In
addition, we are not discussing the specifics of the potential
location."
The city's secretiveness about its plans for the area north of Galvez
Street irked the leader of the neighborhood association. Paul Ikemire
said leaders from LSU, Tulane University and the VA had talked to the
neighborhood about the proposed expansion, but he had heard nothing from
the mayor.
"Ray Nagin is our mayor, and when the city makes an agreement with the
state regarding a community, I would have thought he would be the first
to contact the neighborhood association," he said.
Ikemire, a medical student, said he understood the need to retain the
veterans hospital downtown. But if he had the opportunity to talk to the
mayor, he said, he would have suggested that the city look at area
between Tulane Avenue and Poydras Street north of the interstate as an
alternative. He said that area has far more blighted and empty space
than the area beyond Galvez does.
The city and state's offer to acquire additional land for the VA is, of
course, only a proposal. The federal agency will ultimately decide if it
wants to plant its new hospital north of Galvez or somewhere else in New
Orleans and Jefferson Parish where it has received an offer of land.
Matt Burns, a VA spokesman, said Wednesday that his agency is preparing
to assess the bids that came in this week. He said the VA does not have
a "set timeline" for choosing a hospital site and would continue to
watch the state's progress obtaining land for the proposed collaboration
with LSU.
Charles Zewe, an LSU spokesman, said the university and the VA continue
to work closely to build affiliated hospitals. He said the city and the
state's effort to obtain additional land for the veterans hospital is
not a sign that the federal government has decided to strike out on its
own.
"The construction of a joint LSU-VA hospital is still the focus, still
the first priority," he said.
Zewe said the state formed a partnership with the city to retain the
veterans hospital after business groups in the city became concerned
that its departure would leave a chasm in the downtown medical district
that could lead to the departure of the LSU hospital and even the
medical school.
He said Ed Blakely, the city's recovery czar, approached the state with
an offer of financial help.
When asked Wednesday if the city could afford to invest some $50 million
or more in keeping the veterans hospital downtown, Councilman Arnie
Fielkow said the project was critical to the economic health of the
city. He recently traveled to St. Louis with other business and civic
leaders and said he saw how investment in health care and the
biosciences had transformed the local economy.
"The city administration and the City Council are solidly behind this
project," Fielkow said. "We understand the economic development
opportunities and benefits that go with this. One lesson we learned from
St. Louis is that if you cluster your assets -- both your health care
assets and also your universities -- you have an opportunity to build an
entire economy around biotech research. That is very exciting for us."
Kate Moran can be reached at
kmoran@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3491.
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Larry Scott --
