LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Norton Healthcare unveiled plans for a $70 million hospital in the Parkland neighborhood on Wednesday, the first new medical center for Louisville's West End in decades.
Norton would join Goodwill industries of Kentucky’s 20-acre “opportunity campus” at 28th Street and West Broadway in a $100 million project that is scheduled to break ground this summer and open in 2023.
The site also is slated to include Goodwill’s headquarters and offices for other local social service agencies. Norton plans to spend $7 million to buy land for the hospital and back other services, although it couldn't provide an estimated purchase price.
"Today could be the most transformational day in the history of healthcare in our community," Russ Cox, Norton's president and CEO, told elected officials and community and business leaders at the Kentucky Center for African American Heritage.
"Perhaps more significantly, today provides us with an opportunity to truly begin to change the narrative about investment in west Louisville, the permanence of commitment in west Louisville and sustainability in west Louisville," Cox said.
He said the hospital would be the first to be built west of Ninth Street since construction began on the former U.S. Marine Hospital in Portland in 1845. That facility opened in 1852 and closed in 1933.
But there have been other hospitals west of Ninth. Sts. Mary and Elizabeth Hospital, for example, operated at South 13th and West Magnolia streets from 1874 through 1958, when it moved to Bluegrass Avenue, according to the Encyclopedia of Louisville.
Norton plans a 40,000-60,000-square-foot building on 6.5 acres with 20 inpatient beds, an emergency room, adult and pediatric primary care offices, X-ray and CT scans and women’s health, cardiology, neurology and endocrinology services.
Metro government's 2017 health equity report found cancer rates are "clustered" in the western half of Louisville, and residents of some neighborhoods there also have higher rates of heart disease and stroke. Those findings are "unacceptable," Cox said.
"Your genetic code is going to do enough to you and have enough of an impact on your health status," he said. "Your zip code can no longer come into play with your health status."
The hospital is expected to create roughly 100 new jobs with an average salary of $60,000. Norton didn't have estimates Wednesday of construction jobs and wages.
The 20.5-acre property includes land once home to the old Sypris Technology manufacturing plant. Goodwill announced plans to build the “opportunity campus” at the site in 2020. Demolition began last year.
Besides Goodwill's headquarters, its $30 million project calls for offices for Big Brothers Big Sisters, KentuckianaWorks, Volunteers of America, YMCA, Legal Aid Society, Park Community Credit Union, Shawnee Christian Healthcare Center and the Kentucky College of Barbering.
The investment will transform a 20-acre brownfield site located at 28th Street and Broadway into an Opportunity Campus that will house Goodwill’s headquarters operation, a collection of local social service agencies and a $70 million hospital operated by Norton Healthcare. pic.twitter.com/tROgHuHiwQ
— Norton Healthcare (@Norton_Health) February 23, 2022
Amy Luttrell, President and CEO of Goodwill Industries of Kentucky, said those organizations will offer services ranging from second-chance banking to job skills training to a full-service cafeteria.
"We are celebrating a partner collaboration that will rival any other national example and is certainly the first of its kind," she said.
Metro Councilmember Keisha Dorsey attended the announcement and told WDRB News that the project at 28th and Broadway represents "hearing the voice of the residents."
Dorsey said she expects a multiplier effect that's likely to include restaurants and other investments in the area.
"That's what we've been looking for in West Louisville," she said. "It's not this singular impact. This is transformational."
Goodwill plans to use about $5 million from the New Market Tax Credit program for lower-income communities and a $350,000 grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to help cover its costs, spokesman Barnard Baker said.
The company also will tap proceeds from the sale of its current headquarters 1325 S. Fourth St., and other store revenues, he said, as well as funds from an upcoming capital campaign.
Norton plans to finance its project -- $50 million in construction and $20 million in operation costs -- from its general operating fund, spokeswoman Kate Eller said in an email.
The hospital announcement is the second in as many weeks in Louisville. UofL Health disclosed its plans last week for a $144 million expansion of University Hospital downtown.
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