Farmington Hills City Councilman Richard Lerner remembers a conversation with Paul LaCasse, the president/CEO of Botsford Health Care, in which LaCasse worried whether he could keep the hospital, then one of the last few independent hospitals in Michigan, in the city without finding a partner.
Speaking of the affiliation created in last year between Botsford, Oakwood and Beaumont, Lerner said: “Well, he went out and found that merger.”
Now that merger is paying off for the city. LaCasse was at the Farmington Hills City Council meeting seeking final approval of a $160-million expansion project on the 24-acre campus that will increase beds, add a new pavilion for rooms and build a new parking structure.
The planned-unit-development (PUD) project was approved 6-0 by the city council Monday. Mayor Pro-Tem Kenneth Massey recused himself from the discussion because he serves as chairman of the board of Botsford Hospital.
The city council was following the recommendation of the city’s planning commission, which recommended approval of the plan in August.
LaCasse pointed out the hospital handles some 15,000 admissions a year, sees some 65,000 patients and is a Level I trauma center.
“(The project) allows us to upgrade our physical plant, which we’ve needed to do for the last several years,” said LaCasse, Botsford’s CEO since 2005. “We can continue serving the community with the best health care possible. This is a milestone for us. It allows us to be in Farmington Hills for years to come.”
Michael Thompson of HKS Architects of Northville, which is handling the project for Beaumont Health, said the project includes:
• A renovated, five-story bed tower with 80 private beds. Thompson said they’re also renovating the existing tower, turning existing bed spaces currently doubled and tripled up into private rooms. When it’s all done, the hospital will still have 330 beds.
• A new pavilion that will add nine state-of-the-art operating rooms. Other, smaller operating rooms currently in place will be turned into other spaces.
• A new four-level parking structure with 470 spaces.
• Other site improvements, such as enhanced energy usage and stormwater collection.
“We’re going to start with the parking structure this year, before the snow flies,” said Thompson, who said he hopes the project will be done by Spring 2019.
According to Ed Gardiner, the city’s director of planning and community development, the PUD designation benefits both parties in some ways.
For instance, Gardiner said, Beaumont got several variations to zoning issues, including variations for heigh and setback. The city, in turn, got concessions such as, among others, regarding buffers between the hospital and nearby residential areas.
Council members were enthusiastic about the plan. Council member Samantha Steckloff, who has seen her share of the hospital while battling breast cancer, said she appreciates the project, particularly the landscaping that will be added.
“I’ve spent a lot of time there … I’ve really come to appreciate that it is more than a hospital setting,” Steckloff said. “I really appreciate the landscaping. A lot of people have to spend a lot of time there, and (landscaping) is one of those little things people appreciate.”
