Old Lafayette hospital to be demolished

LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI) - An old hospital in Lafayette is now set to be demolished and the property redeveloped.

Franciscan St. Elizabeth Health said Tuesday that a developer was purchasing the massive building formerly known as Home Hospital. Precise plans for the roughly 20-acre site on South Street – which has housed a hospital since 1869 - were not announced, but officials did say Columbian Park Redevelopment planned to raze the hospital building, at a cost of $3 million to 5 million.

Franciscan St. Elizabeth Health will save an estimated $500,000 per year by merely having the site occupied. The last thing that was moved out of the building was a computer center back in January. Since then the entire building has sat empty. Most clinical services moved out of the building to Franciscan St. Elizabeth East in February 2010.

The sold property is not all contiguous.  Outside of the hospital building, it's mostly parking lots.  Some buildings left out of the sale include the IU Health buildings and the parking garage.

In a news conference Tuesday, Franciscan St. Elizabeth Health President and CEO Terry Wilson, along with Lafayette Mayor Tony Roswarski, noted how difficult it is to sell a hospital building.  Several efforts to sell the building it or even donate it to a nonprofit group, along with financial incentives from the city, were unsuccessful.

While the sale is a private decision and the developers can do with the property as they want, the city does have some control in the form of zoning changes. Most of the property is currently zoned medical related. Roswarski said the city will be working with the neighbors to promote preferred development.