McKinley East Sacramento Neighborhood Association (MENA)

MERCY HOSPITAL NEIGHBORHOOD UPDATE

Aug 30, 2004

Nearly a year has passed since Mercy General Hospital convened a task force (including two MENA representatives) to review and provide feedback on the hospital?’s plans for a new medical facility. While the hospital has neither announced nor submitted its proposal to city planners as of yet, it appears the proposal will be far different than what was on the drawing board when discussions were first begun.



Mercy?’s original concepts included obtaining Sacred Heart Parish School property, tearing down some old homes around 39th Street and relocating the school. None of those items are on the table anymore. The school is not moving and no homes are being targeted for demolition.



Mercy?’s conceptual plans still call for constructing the heart center on the hospital?’s main campus between the Mercy Medical Plaza building and the main hospital. This addition, however, does not increase the number of hospital beds because beds are being shifted to the heart center from older buildings that do not meet earthquake standards. The proposed architectural design would incorporate an ?“arts and craft?” style reflective of many of the homes in the neighborhood and a mixture of textures including brick and stone similar to nearby Sacred Heart Church. Mercy proposes to move its chapel to the new building, thereby allowing additional parking, to address neighborhood concerns about visitors and hospital employees parking on residential streets.



How Mercy should accommodate parking remains unresolved and involves the fate of the abandoned MercyCare structure, an old convalescent building, located across 39th Street tucked in the interior of that block near the Mercy McMahon housing complex. The MercyCare site backs up to several residential properties on H as well as 38th and 39th streets.



According to the hospital?’s architect, adding a lot of parking on the hospital?’s main campus is not feasible except for modification to the North Parking Garage on H Street, which has the potential to expand about 200 more spaces. Re-striping and counting spaces that can be added by moving the chapel helps Mercy but the hospital still sees the need to gain 119 to 260 spaces. Mercy is now considering two options for additional parking: (1) modify the North Parking Garage and converting the MercyCare location into a surface parking lot or (2) abandon any work to the North Garage and instead erecting an underground parking structure on the MercyCare property along with surface parking. According to the hospital either option would satisfy their parking needs and both options call for shade trees and landscaping assuring that MercyCare does not become just a bare asphalt lot. Design drawings also show any modification to the North Garage would be behind the large mature trees on H Street and almost undetected from the street. Mercy expects to submit its final proposal to city planners in mid October, which will begin a series of extensive environmental reviews and public hearings that solicit public input. Prior to submission, Mercy has promised to hold a neighborhood meeting to go over its plan separate from any meetings required by the city planning department. That meeting will be open to the neighborhood and is expected to be sometime in early October. Mercy is expected to send a notice in the mail to all residents within a mile radius of the hospital as it has done before. MENA?’s board will continue to monitor this issue about date, time and location. All interested MENA members are encouraged to attend that meeting and hear first-hand about Mercy?’s proposal.