Closing of a piece of Second Avenue SE for medical complex feels close to reality

CEDAR RAPIDS - Physicians' Clinic of Iowa appears close to getting its wish on the closing of Second Avenue SE between 10th and 12th streets SE.

At a noontime meeting on Wednesday, four members of the nine-member City Council expressed support for closing Second Avenue SE, calling it an acceptable trade off for the physicians' $36-million investment in what they call a medical “mall” at 10th Street SE at Second Avenue SE.

The project also includes a parking ramp, the estimated $8-million cost of which will be paid largely by the new property taxes over time that would be generated by the new medical facility.

Mayor Ron Corbett and council member Chuck Swore are most strongly in support of the PCI request to close a portion of Second Avenue SE, which is a major traffic artery into the downtown. Council members Justin Shields and Don Karr also said Wednesday that they were on board with the street closing.

Council members Kris Gulick and Chuck Wieneke said they like the proposed PCI investment, which PCI and the city's hospitals argue will help establish a new medical district along 10th Street SE between the two hospitals. However, Gulick and Wieneke both said they wanted to see the ramifications on traffic flow and the cost of street changes that come with closing a stretch of Second Avenue SE.

Council member Monica Vernon said she, for now, is against the closure but open to listening.

Contacted by phone Wednesday afternoon, council member Tom Podzimek said he needed to hear more. It will take a compelling argument to get his vote to close a street, he said.

Council member Pat Shey could not be reached.

The council members' comments on the Second Avenue SE closing came after a new presentation of PCI's building plans by Mike Sundall, PCI's chief executive officer. Ted Townsend, CEO/president of St. Luke's Hospital, also talked to the council about the need to establish a medical district to prevent what he said is a “leakage” of patients and physicians away from Cedar Rapids. The district and investments like the PCI one in the district should help turn the trend around and help the community attract more medical specialists, Townsend said.

Vernon asked Sundall what had happened to PCI's initial medical-mall proposal - which was unveiled at a public news conference a week before last November's city election - that showed the new facility without closing Second Avenue SE.

Sundall and Townsend said their unsuccessful effort to buy the First Lutheran Church in the 1000 block of Third Avenue SE as well as the Firestone store along 10th Street SE has eliminated one building option that would keep Second Avenue SE open.

Vernon asked what the cost of purchasing the church and the Firestone store would be, but Sundall and Townsend said the numbers were confidential. Vernon said she would need to look at the cost for other PCI options to compare to the costs to the city and community of closing a portion of Second Avenue SE.

Vernon also questioned Sundall's insistence that PCI and its 50-plus physicians needed a medical mall rather than a campus of buildings. Vernon said communities around the nation are blowing up malls in favor of campus buildings.

Council member Swore noted that a medical complex in Lincoln, Neb., has several streets that end at the complex, and council member Gulick said the same was true at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, N.Y.

In answer to a question from Gulick, Sundall said patient flow through the medical mall complex was a more important reason to close Second Avenue SE than the cost to PCI of building around the street.

Sundall said keeping Second Avenue open and tunneling it under the PCI complex would add $10 million to the project cost, to which council member Shields said the city isn't eager to add to its costs either to change other streets to accommodate the closing of Second Avenue SE between 10th and 12th streets SE.

As part of the closing, the plan is to turn what remains of Second Avenue and also Third Avenue SE into two-way streets from one-way ones.

The PCI design already calls for skywalks across 10th Street SE from a parking ramp, and Sundall said keeping Second Avenue SE open and adding skywalks across it at $750,000 to $1 million each would be costly and make getting around the new facility difficult.

Sundall stopped short of saying PCI would look to move its plans to a suburban location if Second Avenue SE did not close, but he left the option open.

PCI will hire local firm Anderson-Bogert Engineers and Surveyors Inc. of Cedar Rapids to conduct a study of how traffic will be impacted by the Second Avenue SE closing. The city will share in the study's cost, city officials said Wednesday.

PCI anticipates holding a public hearing on the street closure at a City Council meeting in July or early August. It wants to break ground in the Spring of 2011 and move in to the new facility in January 2013.