By D.E. Schlatter 21st Century Media News Service

LOWER MAKEFIELD - At the Sept. 18 board of supervisors' meeting, Aria Health officials formerly presented a concept calling for an outpatient health care village instead of a traditional hospital to be built at the intersection of Stony Hill Road and the Newtown Bypass.

For several years, the health-care provider has been embroiled in a high-octane battle with township officials and residents over building a large-scale hospital and medical office complex on the site, which is zoned office/research. It would replace its current facility on Oxford Valley Road near the mall, formerly known as Frankford Hospital.

The trend nowadays is toward outpatient facilities rather than intensive care, said W. Brian Sundermeir, senior vice president of the MRA Group, a Horsham-based real estate firm which Aria has retained to develop the 41-acre site on what was once part of the Shady Brook Farm.

According to Sundermeir, the concept is an exciting new trend in outpatient health care services which had cropped up in Florida and California, but not in this area.

Our vision is to bring the health care village to Lower Makefield, he said while presenting a 20-minute slide-show to the more than 80 residents attending the supervisors meeting. Reception to the idea appeared lukewarm from both residents and the supervisors.

Sundermeir explained that the trend in health care is toward outpatient services, instead of intensive care.

He said that the number Lower Makefield residents who are 65 and older is expected to increase 18 percent in the next few years, with the need for health care services in the township anticipated to rise16 percent.

Originally Aria had proposed building a 375,000-square-foot hospital, 40,000-square-foot ambulatory surgery center along with a 40,000-square-foot medical office building at the Shady Brook Farm site.

But Sundermeir said that a heath care village would be much smaller, roughly 180,000-square-feet with about 600 parking spots and buildings which are only two or three stories tall.

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Aria presents plans for ‘health care village’ concept at Lower Makefield supervisors meeting as alternative to ...