CHW Plans Hospital in Queen Creek Area: 30-Bed Facility Could Be Taking Patients in 2010
By Sarah J. Boggan, The Tribune, Mesa, Ariz.
Jul. 27–Growth is driving more medical facilities to the far reaches of the East Valley with Catholic Healthcare West making plans for a hospital in the Queen Creek area.
CHW officials said they have 40 acres in escrow at the southwest corner of Riggs, Meridian, Rittenhouse and Combs roads — an area just south of Queen Creek and Schnepf Farms that will someday become a 500-acre regional commercial area.
The site is scheduled for a 30-bed hospital with an emergency room opening in 2010. A preliminary timeline has construction starting in 2009.
“We’re looking at the growth in the community of Queen Creek as well as in the northern Pinal County market,” said Bob Campbell, vice president of business development for CHW. “Based on that growth they’ll require a higher level of health care service. This is a good location.”
The company opened CHW Urgent Care-Queen Creek a year ago on Power Road north of Germann Road and has already doubled the size of the treatment area, more evidence of the need for medical care in the area, officials said.
The facility will join Banner Health’s Banner Ironwood hospital, planned for southeast of Queen Creek on Gantzel Road south of Combs Road in Pinal County, as the boom area’s only hospitals. The hospitals will be about a mile apart.
Construction on Banner Ironwood will begin late this year or early 2008. It was originally set to open in 2008 but the design phase took longer than expected, officials said.
Campbell said the slowing housing market is something they considered as they selected the site but the overall population projections in the area warrant more medical care facilities and prompted their investment in the Queen Creek area.
The site is located in Queen Creek’s planning area and the company intends to annex into the town, said Doreen Cott, Queen Creek’s economic development program manager.
CHW is the eighth largest hospital system in the nation with hospitals in California, Nevada and Arizona. It currently operates Mercy Gilbert Hospital and Chandler Regional Hospital in the East Valley.
Cott said the medical facility also will be a catalyst for other medical offices and medicalbased industries in the area.
Queen Creek Mayor Art Sanders said he’s excited about the plans for a hospital in the town from both a professional and personal level with a lot of his family residing in the Queen Creek area.
“The closest hospital is Gilbert, and whenever we’re talking about traffic we’re also talking about longer response times,” Sanders said. “It could save somebody’s life to have it that much closer.”
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