Advisory Panel Recommends Junction City for State Psychiatric Hospital
By Jack Moran, The Register-Guard, Eugene, Ore.
Mar. 1–SALEM — Junction City is the ideal place for a 360-bed state psychiatric hospital that would serve Southwestern Oregon, an advisory panel to Gov. Ted Kulongoski reported Wednesday.
If state legislators endorse the plan, the $163 million, 1,100-employee hospital would be built on a 242-acre, state-owned parcel inside Junction City’s urban-growth boundary.
Local officials, including the Junction City mayor, a state representative, and Eugene and Springfield officials, all urged the state to pick the Junction City site. The jobs would be a valuable addition to the economy, and the presence of the hospital would spur development on nearby land, advocates say.
The panel favored the site over eight others identified as potentially suitable locations for a new state mental facility designed to house patients who live south of Linn County. A 10-person committee appointed by Kulongoski used a complex ranking system to arrive at its recommendation.
Another site the panel considered is privately owned farmland just north of Springfield’s Gateway area, outside the metro area’s urban-growth boundary.
The land is next to Interstate 5. The panel ranked that site sixth, behind three Medford sites and one in Roseburg.
The main advantage to building the psychiatric hospital on the Junction City site is that the state already owns the land, the panel said. The state bought the property in 1997 with plans to build a prison there. State officials said Wednesday that even with a new mental facility, there would be enough land left for a prison.
According to the report, another benefit of operating a hospital in Lane County is the chance to hire doctors, nurses and other educated workers already living in the Eugene-Springfield area.
Also, in 2006, about 12 percent of all patients in the single existing state mental hospital, now in Salem, were from Lane County. Multnomah was the only county with a larger percentage of patients there.
“Junction City seems to present us with some of the best opportunities,” said Dr. Bruce Goldberg, director of the state Department of Human Services.
“One of the largest factors was first and foremost being able to meet the need of our (patient) population,” he said. “It also presented some wonderful opportunities as far as recruitment and retention of staff.”
Along with the Junction City site, the panel is recommending that a 620-bed hospital to serve the north Willamette Valley be built in Salem, on property where the antiquated Oregon State Hospital is located. Officials hope the Legislature approves funding this year to begin construction of the Salem hospital. The plan calls for that facility to be completed in 2011. The state has been under intense pressure to build new facilities to replace the dilapidated mental hospital in Salem.
The Junction City hospital is expected to be built by 2013, the report said.
Junction City Mayor Larry Crowley was pleased with the panel’s recommendation. City officials actively sought the nod, submitting an informational packet that included letters of recommendation from Eugene and Springfield city officials, state Rep. Chris Edwards and the Lane Metro Partnership.
Crowley said the project will require the state to pay for sewer and water line extensions to the property just south of the city limits.
Jack Roberts, executive director of Lane Metro Partnership, a business recruitment agency, said a new hospital would probably lead to more development opportunities in the area.
“The jobs that (the state hospital) produces in the community are good jobs,” Roberts said. “But another reason why we supported it was that we believe that by bringing infrastructure to that site, it helps Junction City develop other industrial land that we see as important land for development.”
Roberts and Springfield Mayor Sid Leiken said the 160-acre Gateway-area site ultimately will be developed in some other fashion.
Leiken said he felt all along that Junction City was the best location for a new state hospital.
“It makes a lot more sense for it to be sited there,” he said. “Having a major state operation just 20 minutes away (from Eugene-Springfield) would be a win-win for the entire community.”
Bill Foster, administrator of the state Department of Administrative Service’s facilities division, said the site north of Gateway presented several obstacles. For one, the state would have had to negotiate a purchase with two property owners. Also, both parcels are outside the urban growth boundary and zoned for exclusive farm use.
To build the hospital there, a range of governments would need to agree to a boundary expansion and a land use change. That could be difficult to achieve.
—–
To see more of The Register-Guard, Eugene, Ore., or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.registerguard.com.
Copyright (c) 2007, The Register-Guard, Eugene, Ore.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.