Zoning change approved for hospital outpatient facility

Southeast Missouri Hospital gained the necessary zoning change at Wednesday's Planning and Zoning Commission meeting to construct an outpatient facility on donated property in the 700 and 800 block of Mount Auburn Road.

The facility will sit between Mount Auburn and Interstate 55 at a location hospital president and CEO Jim Wente says will be the hospital's "west campus."

"On Broadway we're landlocked," said Wente. "So we've tried to be good downtown corporate citizens, but as the hospital moves towards ambulatory service we have no more room to grow."

Wente said he has not yet presented the proposal to the hospital's board of trustees, but if the board approves, construction can begin in the fall. Wente also said the space at the hospital's newly opened Broadway facility is nearly all rented out with only one suite unclaimed.

Southeast also requested a C-2 general commercial rezoning on a 21-acre plot on the east of Mount Auburn Road.

Hospital officials said they have no plan for the second tract saying only that any use would be "health-care related."

This lack of clarity made some city commissioners uncomfortable. Commissioner Bill Hinckley, who eventually voted for the rezoning, said granting zoning without first seeing a plan could set a bad precedent.

"If you open this door, I'm not sure how you close it again," he said.

The rezoning passed by a vote of 8 to 1.