PCI’s site plan approved; commission member questions amount of surface parking

CEDAR RAPIDS – Five surface parking lots will surround the forthcoming Physicians' Clinic of Iowa medical mall, including one at the site of a historic church.

The parking lots were part of PCI's preliminary site development plan approved Thursday by the city's Planning Commission.

Commission members voted 7-1, with one abstention, in favor of the plan.

The commission's vote is the final approval for the site plan, which will not go in front of the City Council unless someone files an appeal.

Anyone can file an appeal within 10 days of the vote to the City Clerk's office.

“I'm not against the project, but we've got to do better,” said commission member Mike Tertinger, who cast the lone vote against the plan.

Commission member Virginia Wilts abstained, asking what happened to housing and other components of the medical district's vision.

Tertinger questioned the number of surface parking lots, including one slated for the site of First Christian Church, 840 Third Ave. SE.

St. Luke's Hospital purchased the nearly century-old church in December for $695,000.

Tertinger said he read a Gazette article quoting a hospital official saying there were no current plans to demolish the building on the same day he received the preliminary plan with a parking lot marked on the site of the church.

He noted that the proposed medical district was envisioned as pedestrian friendly, with abundant green space.

“I've never been to a town that has more parking lots,” Tertinger said of Cedar Rapids. “We're taking out buildings and voting in surface parking.”

The plan's green space is primarily landscaping around the medical mall and trees incorporated around parking lots, said Tred Schnoor, of Schnoor Bonifazi Engineering & Surveying of Cedar Rapids.

PCI's 206,000-square-foot medical mall will be built across Second Avenue SE between 10

^th

and 12

^th

streets.

That portion of Second Avenue will close.

Brad Larson, a planner in the city's Community Development Department, said a variance was approved for parking, which reduced the number of spaces required from 1,402 to 1,016.

Schnoor said PCI anticipates  580 to 600 stalls being in use at any one time.

“They are very confident that is more than enough parking,” he said.

An $8 million parking ramp will be built on Second Avenue SE from 10

^th

Street to the site of the Grant Wood Studio, 810 Second Ave. SE.

The 3½-story ramp will have 479 parking spaces.

Commission vice-chair Allan Thoms asked why there was any debate about the church.

“We are looking at a medical district and that means medical buildings,” he said. “Are we going to (keep) this church right in the middle of this?”

Mike Easley, director of St. Luke's facility planning and operations, said the church would not be demolished if a private investor is able to move it from the site. It that proves impossible, the building could be salvaged, he said.