News

Adventist Hospital presses on unilaterally with expansion

by Todd Post

In spite of community opposition, Washington Adventist Hospital (WAH) and building contractor Foulger-Pratt intend to seek a special exemption request from the Montgomery Board of Appeals for zoning approval to begin construction of the hospital’s expansion plan.

Nearly everyone agrees that WAH needs to expand, but the issue that has many members of the community at odds with one of its most prominent institutions is not whether to expand, but how to expand.

WAH plans to expand its facilities to include a new medical services building, a 1100-car parking garage, an expanded emergency room, a new five-story patient-room above the existing emergency room, and an upgraded physical plant. All of these additions will be located at 7600 Carroll Avenue–and therein lies the rub.

The impact on traffic in the community could be disastrous, say those who are urging WAH to look at alternatives to the current plan.

County councilmember Tom Perez, who lives in Takoma Park, worries that consolidating all of the expansion at 7600 Carroll will create severe blockages at all the main traffic arteries around town.

"The question is: How much [of the expansion] can we take off-campus so as to mitigate the traffic concerns?" Perez is quoted as saying.

Off-campus locations suggested have included the University Boulevard and New Hampshire Avenue corridors. But so far the hospital has been unwilling to move any of the expansion off-campus. The proposed alternatives are either too small, or depend too much on the whims of unpredictable landlords, say hospital spokespeople.

Forgive the pun, but what a stroke of irony. A hospital with a world-class reputation for cardiac care won’t work to prevent blocked up arteries?

Following an eight-month study of possible alternate sites, WAH President Ken Bauer has announced, "we don’t see any viable options on the table."

For Keith Berner, a member of the community organization Sensible Growth and president of the neighborhood association Between the Creeks, the hospital’s position on what constitutes a "viable option" has been disappointing and possibly even disingenuous.

Berner questions whether WAH’s commitment to Takoma Park has been sold off to Foulger-Pratt, the Rockville-based construction, development, and property management company that has agreed to underwrite the on-site expansion plan.

Pending the decision by the County’s Board of Appeals, WAH and Foulger-Pratt would form a Limited Liability Corporation in which the developer leases the land back to the hospital at $1 a year for 99 years.

Apart from the immediate concerns of whether Takoma Park can absorb the increased traffic as a result of the on-site expansion, "there is the issue of community values," adds Keith Berner. "Who should be making the decisions about changes in Takoma Park, the city’s residents or a developer in Rockville?"

For Berner and others concerned about these ramifications, it’s important that others in the community see the corner of Flower and Carroll Avenues as nothing less than an historic crossroads for Takoma Park. "And that is why," Berner says, "we are prepared to carry the fight as far as it will go."

But if the County Board of Appeals approves the hospital’s current expansion plan, there may be little left to be done–and little reason for WAH and Foulger-Pratt to seek an alternate solution.