For more
Last year, Dignity Health executives backed out of building a hospital at Union Village, throwing a big wrench in the planned Henderson health care complex.
But now, as that project finally moves toward reality, Dignity bosses are laying another bet in the area — across the street, to be exact.
Dignity, parent company of the St. Rose Dominican hospitals network, plans to build an outpatient medical center at the northeast corner of Galleria Drive and Gibson Road. The dirt lot is next to Cowabunga Bay Water Park and across Gibson from Union Village, whose developers held a groundbreaking ceremony last week, more than 3 years after unveiling their plans.
Orange-and-white banners on the fence surrounding Dignity’s 2.3-acre site say the “Dignity Health Medical Pavilion” will be a full-service outpatient facility with primary and specialty care.
The banners also say the complex will open in 2015, even though it’s slated, in fact, for 2016.
“That was a misprint or something,” said Rod Davis, senior vice president of Nevada operations for San Francisco-based Dignity.
The triangle-shaped project site is owned by developer Barry Fieldman, who foreclosed in 2011, but Dignity is under contract to buy it. The company had been eyeing the site for at least six months, and its purchase is expected to close in the next few months, said Fieldman, who would not disclose the purchase price.
Davis would not give an exact figure but said his company is paying between $1 million and $3 million for the land. The facility’s size and services have not been finalized, he said.
The facility would be the fourth outpatient complex under the Dignity Health Medical Group Nevada banner. The others opened in the past year, and Davis said the Galleria location won’t be the last.
There are a number of advantages in building across from the 155-acre Union Village project, in no small part due to its visibility.
“It makes sense that we continue to complement the services that will be there,” Davis said.
Workers installed the banners last week, a day after Dignity signed a purchase agreement for the site, Davis said. They were on the fence the morning of Union Village’s groundbreaking.
That project, estimated to cost $1.2 billion, is slated to feature hospitals, retail, entertainment, office space and senior housing. But it’s years behind schedule, in part because the investors had to find another hospital developer.
Dignity had agreed to build a 214-bed hospital to anchor the project, but the company backed out in February 2013, citing a lack of financing.
Universal Health Services’ local hospital network, Valley Health System, announced in January this year that it would build at Union Village instead. The facility will be known as Henderson Hospital.
Meanwhile, Dignity is working on other real estate projects in the valley.
The company is building a five-story, roughly $160 million tower at its St. Rose Dominican-Siena campus at St. Rose Parkway and Eastern Avenue in Henderson. It’s also adding almost 100 private rooms, 32 emergency room and observation bays, and six operating suites at the campus.
Construction is scheduled to be finished in early 2016.