Tim Ryan, tryan@wolfrivermedia.com
City officials have drafted an agreement with ThedaCare to have the former Shawano Medical Center torn down after concluding there was no viable use for the former hospital.
City Administrator Brian Knapp said that conclusion was reached after the Menominee Indian Tribe pulled out of plans to convert the building into a multi-use facility. Some of the uses floated by the tribe included a day care, assisted living facility, college classrooms or student housing, and meal preparation for tribal programs.
Knapp said the tribe recently informed the city and ThedaCare that it was no longer interested in the property.
An amended agenda for Wednesday’s Plan Commission meeting added consideration of a resolution authorizing the city to enter into an agreement with ThedaCare authorizing the razing of the building, which is partly owned by the city. The commission meets at 5 p.m. at City Hall, 127 S. Sawyer St.
ThedaCare has previously said it would bear the expense of razing the building.
“We appreciate ThedaCare moving forward quickly with this,” Knapp said.
Knapp said both parties concluded the only viable option for development at the site would be to clear it and turn it into green space.
A citizens group led by Todd Dobberstein has proposed that the former hospital be converted into a multi-use community center.
That option is apparently still on the table, even without the existing hospital building.
According to Knapp, Dobberstein’s proposal “morphed into an arrangement with a developer that also called for the facility to be removed.”
There is also another party interested in the site as a location for a hotel, Knapp said.
That proposal would be closer to the recommendations that came out of a citizen task force that studied future possible uses for the property two years ago. Options included a waterfront supper club and lodge, and a mix of condominiums and town homes, along with additional green space and a park shelter, and two single-family residential lots.
It’s also possible that the city and ThedaCare could go back to marketing the property to other developers, Knapp said.
The city owns a roughly 3.5-acre parcel of the property that became home to the original Shawano Medical Center in 1931 and was leased from the city. Shawano Medical Center purchased additional land for expansion over the years, and the hospital campus now occupies about 10 acres overlooking the Wolf River near downtown Shawano.