Photo provided Schematic artistic rendering of CRH’s plans for the former Clarion hotel site on Columbus’ west side.
Columbus Regional Health is moving ahead with plans to build a medical facility at the former Clarion hotel site on the city’s west side after the developer the hospital system was working with was “unable to finalize its plans” for the rest of property.
Earlier this week, excavation crews started breaking down and redistributing a large rubble pile that has been on the property for at least three years. CRH officials anticipate that it will take about six weeks for the crews to finish.
CRH purchased the site through a holding company in July 2017, with the acreage, which has been prone to flooding due to its proximity to a wetland, becoming a fill site with road construction debris since then.
“This process … will just work to to further refine that material pile and kind of even that plot of land out, getting it ready for the next step of necessary site improvements for further development,” said CRH spokeswoman Kelsey DeClue.
Last year, CRH had reached an agreement with Clearpath Services of Bloomington, in partnership with architecture, engineering and geospatial firm Woolpert in Indianapolis, to turn the former hotel site into a mixed-use development. The plan was to sell the site while still retaining a parcel of land within the mixed-use development for hospital programs and services.
The hospital system intends for facility to “address short-term health system needs for existing services and provide room for growth and service expansion,” according to hospital officials
CRH President and CEO Jim Bickel said in a previous interview that it will also help increase CRH’s west-side presence.
An application filed in January with the Indiana Department of Environmental Management describe the site as a “regional gateway” to the city and showed plans for, among other things, a medical facility, some 220 apartments, a 100-room hotel, a grocery store and “an interpretive welcome center an architectural monument that evokes the proud tradition of Columbus’ iconic, historical church spires.”
But now all of that is on hold except for the medical facility, DeClue said. CRH officials plans to provide updates on what services will be offered at the facility potentially by late spring. Hospital officials hope that construction will be completed by the end of 2023.
“Essentially, Clearpath was unable to finalize its plans to deliver that vision that we had put forth several months ago,” DeClue said. “And so we have to we have to move forward with our portion of it in order to meet our timelines and our goals for that facility. So we’re beginning that work out there, and the previous relationship that we had with the developer Clearpath is no longer in existence.”
Clearpath did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The pile of rubble on the site contains both debris from the former building and rubble from the Indiana Department of Transportation’s I-65 expansion project. CRH plans to use this material to raise the property above flood grade level.
The rubble hadn’t been moved previously because CRH needed an infrastructure and site plan so that they could know where to spread it out and what other soils and materials would need to be mixed in with it, CRH officials said in a previous interview.
As of Tuesday, IDEM was weighing whether to grant water quality certification at the site. CRH had not applied for any permits at the site, according to Bartholomew County Code Enforcement or the City of Columbus – Bartholomew County Planning Department as of the beginning of this week.
CRH officials, for their part, said the hospital system is still “open” to forming new partnerships to develop the rest of the property.
“We still envision development to that scope, hopefully, for that site at some point,” DeClue said. “It’s just the way we’re going to get there has has changed. …We just have to stay the course and continue with our piece of it while we while we find a new option.”
