Fairview Hospital-North final concept presented

A conceptual plan for Fairview Hospital’s North Campus shows the approximate shape and scale of proposed structures based on programming and space needs, called a massing. It was presented last night to members of Cleveland’s Kamms Corners community. The project will be built in phases starting with the new Cancer Center/Medical Office Building followed by the new parking garage (Cleveland Clinic). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.

Plans receive mixed feedback from community

After presenting plans for the new North Campus of Fairview Hospital, 18101 Lorain Ave., to Cleveland’s Kamms Corners community, Cleveland Clinic officials and their design team will now submit the project to the city’s design-review process for approval. Proposed timelines for the project were also revealed, showing the Clinic wants to move forward quickly on this major project.

Clinic officials said they hope to win design approval for the Fairview Hospital North Campus by the end of this year. And by this time next year, officials from the health care system hope to be preparing the site north of Lorain for the first phase of construction for what could be a $150 million development.

The project is being sought to handle growth in the demand for services at Fairview Hospital, combined with a need to replace five aging and increasingly inefficient structures, according to Clinic officials. That includes the aging, eight-level parking garage on Groveland Avenue and an attached medical office building.

A massing plan, which shows the approximate shape and scale of proposed structures based on programming and space needs, was the selected option presented for development and feedback from neighborhood residents, local business owners and civic leaders. This final version was reduced in scale after earlier feedback, sometimes emotional, was offered at two prior community meetings going back to last April, first revealed by NEOtrans.

In Fairview Hospital’s plans for its North Campus, everything within the dashed lines must be demolished for the new development. However this demolition will occur in phases, as is shown below (Cleveland Clinic).

In a first phase, Clinic officials propose to construct on the north side of Lorain a new cancer center and medical office building overlooking the Rocky River valley. The new building will have more than 160,000 square feet of space on five floors, including rooftop-level mechanicals.

That is smaller than what was previously proposed because pediatric care facilities will no longer be part of the project. Instead, they will be moved to a new but as-yet unidentified location in Rocky River, said Angela Smith, senior director of corporate communications at the Cleveland Clinic.

This first phase, starting next summer, will require the demolition of structures containing the Breast Center and the Respiratory Institute, plus a small corner of the Moll Cancer Center. These are part of structures that total about 47,000 square feet and date from the 1980s and 1990s, according to Cuyahoga County property records.

Eight of nine houses on the east side of West 179th Street will be demolished. After the the new cancer center and medical office building are constructed, the remainder of the Moll Center will be demolished along with a former two-bay garage gas station at 17840 Lorain used by the hospital as a paint shop. The rest of that property is used for hospital parking and will continue to be.

After structures on the western part of the North Campus are demolished next year, construction can begin on the first phase — the new cancer center and medical office building. All but a small corner of the existing Moll Cancer Center will remain in operation during construction (Cleveland Clinic).

Following those demolitions, a 900-plus-space parking garage can be built west of West 179th. The design for the new garage was reduced in scale by one level or more than 100 parking spaces due to the proposed relocation of the pediatrics care services.

An enclosed walkway is planned from the parking garage over Lorain into the existing hospital facilities south of Lorain, located approximately where a glass-fronted stairwell is now. The Lorain frontage of the new garage is planned to be built with a glassy façade, possibly screened by a narrow band of offices or other hospital uses along it.

West 179th south of Allien Avenue will be acquired by the hospital for its own use. The exception is that West 179th will retain access by owners and users of two private properties — a residence and a small business — that the Clinic has been unable to acquire. All other structures on this street south of Allien are being demolished by the hospital for greenspace and buffer zone to the rest of the neighborhood.

Once the new garage opens, the Clinic will demolish the Groveland parking garage with its more than 700 spaces and an attached, five-story, 80,000-plus-square-foot medical office building. Both structures are more than five decades old. They can be demolished only after construction work is done on all of the new structure north of Lorain.

Once the new cancer center and medical office building open, the old Moll Cancer Center will be demolished for construction of the new parking garage. When it opens, the Groveland Avenue garage and an attached medical office building south of Lorain Avenue will be demolished (Cleveland Clinic).

With a finite amount of space to work with in this city neighborhood, the sequencing and phasing are critical, said Cleveland Clinic Executive Director Jorge “Pat” Rios in a phone interview with NEOtrans last spring.

“We’re going to build this with the Moll Center continuing in operation while construction is going on,” Rios said. “A little section of it (Moll Center) has to be removed. Then after the cancer center is moved into the new building, we’re going to demolish the (old) cancer center and build the garage. After the garage is opened, then we’re going to demolish the old garage and the old M.O.B. (medical office building).”

About 50 people were in attendance at last night’s community meeting, about two dozen less than were at prior meetings in April and July. Many of those in attendance were representatives of the Clinic and its design team. Despite the Clinic reducing the scale of their proposed North Campus, some neighbors remained disappointed.

“It was just massing proposals with no details,” said neighbor Douglas Baird. “Not even planned parking lot entrances or renderings of the (medical office) building (were shown). Just rectangles to indicate ‘massing’ and lots of Cleveland Clinic happy talk.”

In this west-looking view on Allien Avenue, this is how the new parking garage could look from the corner of Allien and West 179th Street. New, albeit mature evergreens are shown in front of the new parking garage to screen it from the neighborhood (Cleveland Clinic).

Clinic officials said the garage entrances, which were shown off West 179th, could be refined pending the outcome of a traffic survey that’s underway. And while a timeline was provided as to when the construction could start, there was no indication yet as to how long it might take to reach the final phase of construction.

Although neighbors welcomed the reduced scale of the development, they continue to be concerned about its large size and its impact on their property values, equity and resale potential. Specifically, they wanted to know how traffic will be accommodated, especially during employees’ shift changes. Some wanted the garage to be better screened from the neighborhood with more year-round vegetation.

Others said that, after West 179th is blocked off at Allien, as proposed, the few remaining streets will restrict access to West 176th and West 178th streets, especially to larger vehicles, snow plows, emergency vehicles and delivery trucks that will have limited access and be forced to turn around on the surviving cul de sac of West 179th.

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