Christian Fiscal Court heard more information about the merger of Jennie Stuart Health and Deaconess at Tuesday’s meeting, and approved documentation concerning the Weber Street building.
The Weber Street building, which is the former County Government Treasurer’s Office, came into public attention recently when Fiscal Court marked it as surplus, with the understanding that it would likely be demolished due to it’s reported poor condition. Since that time, numerous members of the public objected to that possibility, so at Tuesday’s meeting, magistrates approved a resolution for possible sale of the building.
That resolutions determines guidelines for what kind of business or property could be located in that historic building, with Magistrate John Bruce putting forth a motion to include no commercial storage facilities.
That was approved, so joins the list of prohibited uses such as no adult entertainment businesses of any kind, no liquor stores or nightclub, no payday loan businesses, no tattoo parlors and more. Magistrate Russ Guffey says this gives a scope of what they’re looking for to any potential buyers—of which he hopes to see many.
Jennie Stuart Health and Deaconess have officially merged as of October 1, but at the last Fiscal Court meeting, magistrates held off on approving a loan agreement with the health system until they got more information. That information came in Tuesday, with a delegation from the system answering question from magistrates.
Deaconess Chief Financial Officer Cheryl Wathen clarified for magistrates that this agreement has no financial bearing on the court, which will act as a pass through, and Deaconess will assume the bonding and debt responsibility for Jennie Stuart.
Jennie Stuart Health CFO Mark Laramee fielded questions related to the merger, and says that it’s been a bit of a bumpy transition—but he has confidence things will smooth out.
The resolution was approved unanimously. In other action, magistrates approved a development grant for Grupo that will allow for the installation of a parking and storage facility.