COLUMBUS, Ind. — Columbus Regional Health has purchased about 800 acres on the west side of Columbus, where future health services would be located as part of the system’s strategic plan.
Friday’s purchase of the farmland for just over $11 million from Garden City Farms LLC will allow the Columbus-based health system to better meet the community’s health care needs, said system President and Chief Executive Officer Jim Bickel, along with CRH board members Sherry Stark and David Doup and Sherry Stark.
What that growth will look like and what that investment will entail is still in the visioning process, Bickel said.
“We won’t need 800 acres for long-range future planning, but the seller was not interested in subdividing the property,” he said.
Most likely, Columbus Regional Health — the second-largest employer in Bartholomew County, with about 2,500 workers — will use 100 to 150 of those acres, and have a say in how the remaining acreage will be utilized, Bickel said.
The property is just east of Interstate 65, which Bickel said was important for both visibility and accessibility by customers. It has access to Jonathan Moore Pike (State Road 46) and State Road 11, and potential access to West County Road 200S.
It is tucked partly behind the city’s west-side entryway with commercial development of restaurants, retail and service outlets already in place. The property also reaches into the Garden City area off State Road 11. For the time being, the land will remain as farmland, currently rented as crop land to the Daily family, hospital officials said.
Read more details in Saturday’s print edition of The Republic.
