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Christus St. Joseph to open hospital in Alvin
Published November 12, 2009
ALVIN — Civic leaders have spent years trying to lure a hospital to Alvin, and on Wednesday developers and Christus Health announced they plan to build an 86,000-square-foot facility off Highway 35, starting in 2010.
Developers plan to build the hospital across from the Kendall Lakes subdivision. Rowland Companies Central and RC Healthcare Properties will build and own the hospital on a 93-acre complex, and the faith-based Christus Health will operate the facility once it’s open, officials said.
A 40,000-square-foot office building also will be built on the complex. Construction for the $113 million facility could start in summer or fall of 2010.
The city announced plans for the hospital in a news conference Wednesday at City Hall amid a full council chambers of area elected officials.
“Over 275 jobs will be created initially, with average incomes of $45,000,” Mayor Gary Appelt said. “A total of 420 direct jobs are to be created over 10 years with 428 indirect jobs in the same time period.”
All of that employment will mean $441 million in salaries for workers over the same time frame, Appelt said.
Alvin has long been without a hospital and the new facility will be an asset for the city, Councilman Eddie Murray said. It also will make Alvin more attractive to workers and draw them to the city, he said.
Officials have been working to get a new hospital in town almost since Alvin Community Hospital closed in 1996.
In 2000, council formally created the Alvin Hospital 2000 committee, composed of area doctors and former council member Doug Balkum, to explore bringing a hospital to the city. It was unsuccessful.
Council organized another committee to work with St. Luke’s Hospital to build a branch facility, but it also was not successful.
Christus chose to operate a hospital in Alvin because of its tremendous potential for growth, said Tom Permetti, Christus St. John CEO.
“It’s a growing, thriving community,” Permetti said.
Christus has 50 hospitals around the world, including Mexico, Ireland and Kenya. But the Alvin facility will bring the organization close to its roots. The organization opened its first hospital in 1866 in Galveston, Permetti said.
“This is as about as close to home as we can get,” Permetti said. “We’re very excited. You’re going to like having Christus in your community.”
The Alvin hospital will be a full-service facility and will offer long-term and emergency care, officials said.
A patient with a broken leg, difficulty breathing or a simple illness sometimes must wait almost 10 to 15 minutes before medics can find a bed at area hospitals, Alvin EMS Director Ron Schmitz said.
“It will definitely have a huge impact,” he said. “It will help take the load off other hospitals.”
The entire process to get an Alvin patient to a Houston or Galveston hospital can take up to an hour, he said.
“He will now be able to take a patient to our hospital within minutes,” Appelt said.
The hospital will not have facilities for trauma patients, Schmitz said.
The facility will have about 28 beds when it opens, but soon will be expanded to 54 beds, officials said. The site has enough room to expand the hospital to eventually include 280 beds, officials said.
Brazosport Regional Health System in Lake Jackson has 175 beds and Angleton Danbury Medical Center has 64 beds.
Christus has other facilities in the Houston area, including the Christus St. John Hospital in Nassau Bay, which has 170 beds.
While developers will fund construction of the Alvin facility, the city will pay about $3 million to build streets, water and sewer lines on the property, City Manager Paul Horn said. But the city will net about $8.8 million in taxes and other revenue from the hospital within 10 years of construction, Appelt said.
Alvin Community College president Rodney Albright said the hospital will be a good asset for the college and its health science programs, which include nursing, respiratory care and emergency medical technology.
“We will help make it a viable entity in this community,” he said.
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