Mercy announces plans for destination cancer center

Mercy Medical Center plans to build a $10.7 million Destination Cancer Center next to its hospital near 10th Street and Fifth Avenue SE, officials announced Wednesday.

Tim Charles, CEO and president of Mercy, said the timing of the announcement was intentional. The Cedar Rapids City Council next week will discuss Physicians' Clinic of Iowa's plans to build a medical mall along 10th Street, between Second and Third avenues SE.

Charles said Mercy's announcement was not intended to derail PCI's plans, but to “let the community know what our plans are.”

“We are at an intersection in our community in respect to health care,” he said.

Doctors from Oncology Associates and Radiation Oncology of Cedar Rapids are included in the center's plans. Dr. Martin Wiesenfeld, medical oncologist of Oncology Associates, will be the Destination Cancer Center's medical director.

Wiesenfeld said the group's 55 employees will become employees of Mercy, but the doctors will still retain privileges to practice at St. Luke's Hospital in Cedar Rapids and elsewhere.

The 45,000-square-foot building will be built on what is now a parking lot across from Mercy's Hall Radiation Center. Charles said the site is out of the 500-year flood plain and stayed dry in 2008. Mercy had to evacuate during the 2008 flood.

Mercy will fund the cancer center privately with the hospital's “strong financial position and through generous benefactors,” Charles said.

Hospital officials noted that the project does not require any redirection of traffic flow - a reference to PCI's request to close part of Second Avenue SE to build its planned medical mall.

Site preparation will begin in coming weeks, with construction set to start in the spring.

The center should be completed by December 2011.

Ted Townsend, president and CEO of St. Luke's Hospital in Cedar Rapids called the decision “disheartening.”

Townsend was referring to more than two years of discussions calling for a community cancer center to be built in a neutral spot between St. Luke's and Mercy.

Mike Sundall, PCI's CEO, also said he is disappointed in Mercy's decision.

“This unilateral action negates two years of discussion that we've had for our community cancer center,” he said.