A Feb 24, 2013, Missourian story said that St. Francis Hospital broke ground in November on a $127 million expansion and renovation project. I spotted the work on my way to Best Buy the other day.
Big hole and lots of rock
It’s incredible how big the facility has grown and how much bigger this is going to make it.
Earlier St. Francis Stories
- St. Francis growth between 1976 and 2011
- “Nun Circus” with vintage photos of fundraiser at old hospital
- Old hospital being torn down, plus photos of old neighborhood
- Vintage photos of old St. Francis laundry
- Dr. Herbert – pediatrician located across from St. Francis
- Last baby born in old hospital
- St. Francis mural
- Doctors Wilson and Estes
Forgetting that this is more land removed from Cape’s property tax base (thus increasing the tax burden on private property owners), perhaps Cape would be better off if one hospital bought the other as illustrated in the article below:
http://www.stltoday.com/print/a-section/rivalry-drives-up-medical-charges-in-cape-girardeau/article_7a25fda1-79e3-5586-914e-9bd8b3cc2d11.html
Harold is correct the acrage is removed from the tax rolls. However all the extra income that is brought into the city is way more than the taxes we would get from a empty field that would be there if there was not Hospital at that corner. Plus all the other businesses that are there because of the hospital. I think over all this is good deal for the city and the whole area.
As for the SEMO and ST. Francis driving up the prices to pay for expansion and new gizmo’s, well that a cost of doing business, and I expect the big hand of competition to level this out very shortly.
If we need two MRI’s and Robot that cuts on your heart and sings Dixie the market pay for it…if not then the robot will be singing some other place.
AAH, Terry… still the voice of reason!
When I was working as an orderly at the old St. Francis Hospital back in 1975 through 1977 while I was a SEMO nursing student, I helped move the patients out of the old hospital to the new one. What a job. It went smoothly but was a lot of work. The new (then) hospital was state of the art for the time. I suppose the new addition will be the latest and greatest with new technology. I believe the university took over the old hospital building and for a time it was the university’s nursing school headquarters. Now it is just history.
Here is a Frony photo of a St. Francis Hospital addition from 1939.
http://www.semissourian.com/blogs/flynch/entry/45895
If property taxes paid by local property owners were falling, Terry might have a case. But the fact that they are rising indicates that the justification he uses for the exemption for St. Francis, SEMO and Southeast does not hold.
when i worked at st.francis that area along mount auburn road was just a big parking lot for the employees. we had to through one door past a security desk. in the st.louis paper a while back an article listed how much higher the prices were in both medical centers than say st.louis or memphis.