After hearing nearly five hours of testimony, the Everett City Council voted 6-1 in late August to allow a rezoning for Providence Everett Medical Center to allow the hospital to move ahead with a planned 9.3-acre expansion project that will be built on Everett Community College’s present athletic field complex, although construction is years away.
Approval came with a requirement that the hospital can not proceed with construction of a 175-foot-tall medical tower until it can prove a need for extra beds. Meanwhile, the hospital is preparing to build a new medical tower for near-term growth needs. The hospital is currently licensed by the state to supply up to 468 beds, which it can accommodate on its existing campus.
The expansion would nearly double the hospital’s footprint in the neighborhood and pave the way for a 13-story building that would be the tallest in the city.
Hospital officials say the expansion is needed to keep pace with the medical needs of a growing and aging population. Snohomish County’s population, now about 700,000, is expected to grow to about 1 million people by 2035.
“Providence is not just a company, we’re not just a business, we’re not just a hospital,” said Providence Chief Executive David Brooks. “Providence is a vital resource for this community and the entire region.”
Opponents maintain the expansion is out of scale for a residential neighborhood and that it breaks previous assurances by the hospital to limit its growth. They also questioned the urgency for a sweeping rezone that deals with buildings that the hospital acknowledges won’t be needed for decades.
Councilman Paul Roberts said he had trouble understanding how some people were surprised by the hospital’s plan to expand onto the community college’s athletic field.
The city in 2005 encouraged the hospital to work with the college to confine future growth to that site, rather than tearing down more homes. The site had been eyed for hospital expansion even before that.
The hospital is already building a 175-foot-high U-shaped building with 368 patient rooms, just south of the new proposed tower. Some of its rooms will not be immediately used for hospital beds because the hospital was not able to demonstrate an immediate need to the Washington state Department of Health.
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