2005/12/05 Council Agenda Packet

Planning Commission Meeting February 15, 2005 Page 3 She stated that the hospital not only serves Everett but the Northwest Washington region as well. The hospital needs to grow to continue to provide care for a growing population that is projected to grow 53% in the next 20 years. The fastest growth in population is the 45-64 and 65 and older age groups. The implications of this growth are an increased demand for hospital care. PEMC is planning to expand the capacity of beds from 362 to 550 beds. Adding the additional capacity requires the need for 136 new physicians and another 94 primary care physicians. At the conclusion of the master site development, PEMC will employ more than 5000 people, will continue to provide nationally recognized health care, and will continue to be a health care anchor for future economic development for Everett and Snohomish County. PEMC will strive to implement a neighborhood friendly plan with active participation of our neighbors. They will collaborate with physician partners to design and build a state of the art medical facility that will meet the needs of all patients. PEMC will have single patient rooms, adequate family and waiting spaces, and will replace outdated facilities that will accommodate the newest technology. They will increase capacity so they will no longer have to transfer people to other area hospitals and will provide adequate parking for all patients, visitors, volunteers, physicians, and staff. She then introduced Curt Whelan who would discuss the master site planning process. Curt Whelan explained that two other previous consulting firms came to the same conclusions as he did associated with the master site recommendations. They reviewed the prior studies and regenerated the studies to insure that all options were tested and proven to be the most appropriate action for PEMC. Early on in the process they began to discuss the master site plan to the neighborhoods on a monthly basis which started in March of 2002, all of 2003 and most of 2004. They also met with the City staff communicating the intent, asking questions, and looking for direction regarding the preliminary findings of their studies. They looked at the health care institution market and what they are trying to establish is the best built environment for PEMC to deliver health care services in the most economic way. They evaluated multiple options: • Pacific Campus and City Center Plan. Obstacles included the cost of the development as compared to a Colby development plan or a new campus plan. This plan required purchasing 30 properties and the implementation period was 2-3 years longer. • New Campus Plan. The hospital would have to be relocated to a new Greenfield site. Because of the mitigating the costs associated with a new campus, the minimal acreage was 40 acres which would probably mean leaving the City of Everett. Also, the 400 million dollars would have to be invested all at once instead of over the 15 year period. • We also looked at the Broadway property instead of developing onto block 248, the Donovan District. However, that site is only a 16 acre site, was not contiguous to the Colby campus, did not lend itself to a phased redevelopment project, and there was not enough land bank to support a new campus development. Mr. Whelan explained that they also reviewed every possible directional option from the existing main campus. A vision statement was developed sensitive to the surrounding neighborhoods which created streetscape improvements and improvements to the overall quality of life within the neighborhood. He referred to an aerial to show where the core of the redevelopment plan was. The yellow building represented the hospitals newest construction built in the 1980s - 1990s which can be moved several decades into PEMC's future. Between one of the newest facilities and Colby Avenue are buildings built in 1966 and those facilities are not even seismically compliant. The focus of the master plan development is to replace older facilities. The newest facilities are positioned to an east/west growth zone, meaning that the building was