To follow up on the story my usefully gossipy readers put on the radar last November, the Madison Community Hospital says publicly it is moving to the south side of Madison. Hospital honcho Tammy Miller says no dirt moves until and unless USDA Rural Development funds the project (ah, government...), but she hopes to have a new building up and taking patients by fall 2014.
Miller says the project will cost $33 million—uff da! That ought to be a lot of local economic stimulus (again, made possible by government).
Miller offers the same assurances she did last December to keep the hospital independent, with "the same working partnerships with Avera McKennan and Sanford Health that exist today."
Elisa Sand's report in tonight's Madison Daily Leader gives no indication of what will become of the old building. Unloading it to Dakota State University (one more instance of useful government!) seems the most logical use for the building, but maybe some entrepreneurs around town have other ideas?
Wow! You can count on Madison keeping a full fledged hospital! Not all communities of Madison's size can make that claim.
But Cory, that talk of government and the private sector working together for something good could cause a run on tinfoil.
maybe a second hand store :)
Owen, that's genius! Put a thrift store right next to campus. Build a skyway, or dig a heated tunnel so all the Zimmerman Hall kids can wander over in their slippers, and boom! we finally have a business model!
you could hire the college kids on the cheap and maybe get a tax break.
you knew there are tunnels under the campus Cory? I know because I used to be a part time security on campus. I've wondered around all of them
Cool! Do you have a map? Do any of them cross under 8th Street to the hospital?
Isn't this the kind of funding that depends on the Farm Bill that can't make it through Congress?
I believe DSU does have maps of the tunnels. I could not find them on the web, but as an undergrad they took us on a tour to see the network infrastructure which runs through them. I believe, I remember them running from the Library to the Trojan Center, but of course there could have been other routes which they didn't take us on that actually expand off campus, but I don't believe so.