An Ascension ‘micro-hospital’ will be built at the former site of Waukesha’s last Sentry store – Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

This rendering included in planning materials filed with the city of Waukesha shows a northeast perspective of the micro-hospital that will be operated by Ascension Wisconsin at Sunset Drive and St. Paul Avenue. The hospital building, which was approved by the city's plan commission on May 27, is part of the redevelopment of the old Fox Run Shopping Center and will be built atop the land with the Sentry Food Store stood.(Photo: Philo Wilke Partnership)

WAUKESHA - The old Sentry store is gone, and in its place will stand a "micro-hospital," operated by a health care provider with an expanding footprint in Waukesha County.

In documents accompanying the agenda for the May 27 meeting of the Waukesha Plan Commission, Ascension Wisconsin is proposing tofill the 32,000-square-foot building in what was until recently the original Fox Run Shopping Center at St. Paul Avenue and Sunset Drive.

If approved, thefacility will become another provider of emergency care for Waukesha patients who, until now, had relied on ProHealth Care's Waukesha Memorial Hospital or urgent care facilities such as those offered by Advocate Aurora.

It's all part of a 13.4-acre redevelopment of the former shopping center, announced in October, into a 72-unit apartment complex and all-new commercial space. The plan is tied to a redevelopment district in which new taxes generated by the improvements would help pay for some of the upfront debt in the project.

At the May 27meeting, the plan commission, which ultimately approved final site plan and architectural review,considered the details of the medical office building itself, in which the main floor would feature the micro-hospital and a second floor filled with medical offices.

As presented in a letter to the city's planning department in April, the medical facility will be positioned on land that was previously home to Bob and Kurt's Sentry store, which was the last in remaining Sentry store in the city of Waukesha. The store closed in January and has since been demolished.

In the new building, afirst-floor hospital will include eight emergency beds and eight in-patient beds, plus X-ray and CT scan rooms. The second floor was listed as "future" medical offices that would be accessed through a separate entrance.

Ascension, which regionally grew to encompass both the Columbia-St. Mary's Hospital and Wheaton Franciscan health care facilities, has recently tried to gain a greater foothold in the suburban areas outside Milwaukee, including in Waukesha County.Among locations proposed or approved in the past year include small hospitals in Menomonee Falls, Greenfield and Mequon.

Technically, the health care provider had already entered the city of Waukesha, where it opened an Ascension Medical Group office on Moreland Boulevard on the city's east side several years ago.

Ascension Wisconsin officials were not immediately available to discuss their expansion efforts and why Waukesha was added to the list of hospital sites.

From the city's standpoint, from a planning perspective, the focus isn't so much about the addition of a hospital and another medical office, but the design of the building itself and the property value increases resulting from redevelopment.

"I've always looked at from the standpoint about what the building would look like," Mayor Shawn Reilly said in a brief phone interview Thursday. "Not so much another hospital, but as another business coming to town. I'll leave it to others the number of hospitals (in the city) and stuff like that. That's always been contentious."

Of course, Ascension's neighbors will be unlike those whichpreviously occupied the former commercial parcel.

The mixed-use development proposed by partner firmsVJS Development Group LLC of Pewaukee, Bedford Development of Waukesha and Somerstone LLC of Brookfield will be greatly defined not by commercial tenants, but residential ones.

The plan is for 72 apartment unitswith rents ranging from roughly $1,000 to $1,500 monthly.

The apartment complex would be built close towhere the former 67,000-square-foot vacant strip mall sat deeper into the Fox Run property relative to Sunset Drive. The strip mall had been completely vacant for years, but once housed a liquor store, a craft shop and other retail businesses in its heyday.

The new development also calls for commercial space, but there areno firm plans onwhat and where those leased elements would be, at this point. In all, the property consists of five developable lots.

It all adds up to a projected $32.3 million increase in taxable property, based on a term sheet that's part of the tax increment financing district which was recently approved to enable redevelopment. For the mayor, that's an important bottom line.

"Very happy about that," Reilly said. "And that's one thing about the hospital itself. That building will be a draw for other businesses to locate next to it. I think we are going to end up with a very successful, major corner in the city of Waukesha."

Though the redevelopment abuts a newer section of the shopping center, most notably anchored by a Kohl's department store, it will have no impact on that commercial center, which is under separate ownership.

Contact Jim Riccioli at (262) 446-6635 or james.riccioli@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @jariccioli.

Our subscribers make this reporting possible. Please consider supporting local journalism by subscribing to the Journal Sentinel at jsonline.com/deal.

Autoplay

Show Thumbnails

Show Captions

Read or Share this story: https://www.jsonline.com/story/communities/waukesha/2020/05/28/ascension-plans-waukesha-micro-hospital-former-sentry-store-site/5267204002/

Visit link:

An Ascension 'micro-hospital' will be built at the former site of Waukesha's last Sentry store - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel