New Kitchener Hospital (Grand River Hospital/St. Mary's Hospital, ?, ?) (Kitchener)

[ericmacm]

Grand River Hospital and St. Mary's Hospital are jointly looking to build a massive new hospital in Kitchener-Waterloo. The details are still vague at this point and no preliminary renderings are available yet, but early plans indicate that the new facility will have around 1,200 beds and be located on a property 50 acres in size or higher. Post-development plans include redeveloping and turning Grand River Hospital into an urgent care centre, whereas the future of St. Mary's Hospital has not been decided yet. Currently, three potential sites have been shortlisted and are anticipated to be revealed at some point this year.

 

[Northern Light]

Grand River Hospital and St. Mary's Hospital are jointly looking to build a massive new hospital in Kitchener-Waterloo. The details are still vague at this point and no preliminary renderings are available yet, but early plans indicate that the new facility will have around 1,200 beds and be located on a property 50 acres in size or higher. Post-development plans include redeveloping and turning Grand River Hospital into an urgent care centre, whereas the future of St. Mary's Hospital has not been decided yet. Currently, three potential sites have been shortlisted and are anticipated to be revealed at some point this year.

50 acres is grossly excessive and is indicative of choices made in Ottawa and Windsor to go with greenfield sites at the edge of suburbia rather than considering a convenient location for staff and patients with good transit access.

At least there's good language around the site choice criteria, even if I'm disinclined to believe it:

Here's the actual criteria list:

At cursory glance, sites of this size anywhere near the existing ION are almost non-existent. The size would require a property roughly equal to entire Conestoga Mall holding.

There is a property on the south side of Bearinger which is just north of the existing U. Waterloo campus and less than 1km from the ION that might have potential. But I'd rather have it walking distance to the ION.

I think that makes a site about 2km north of the existing ION terminus the most logical, it's the nearest greenfield adjacent to the existing rail corridor and a cost-effective extension should be feasible.

 

[Northern Light]

Further note:

1200 beds would make it the 4th largest hospital in the province after UHN, Hamilton Health Sciences, and Trillium, all of which are multi-site organizations.

This would likely be the single biggest hospital site in the province; though the new Ottawa Civic might rival it.

What's interesting about that to me; including the Helipad specification is that it implies to me that this will be a Regional Trauma Centre and a Teaching Hospital.

Normally that would require a nearby Medical School.

 

[ZEBuilder]

The 50 acre requirement is something that has been actually been revised a few times, when they were originally making the criteria they were thinking upwards of 60-70.

The location is something that is constantly debated about on KWs reddit pages every single time there is a news article about it. There's been some interesting ideas that have been floated there but they tend to have substantial issues with them. I'll summarize what's been said below.

By far the most common idea is using the existing Kitchener Auditorium lands (Ottawa and the expressway), it's just over 800m from Borden Station on the LRT, there is easy access from the expressway, it's a relatively central location for most people. The only issues with the site are that it's below 50 acres, it's in the mid 40's, and the Aud would have to relocate.

Using the Rockway golf course has been another idea floated, it's also got easy access to the expressway, it's relatively close to the LRT (Mill Station), this time the main issue is half the property is within the floodplain as Schneiders creek runs right through it.

Using the land in Hidden Valley was brought up since it's close to the phase 2 ION route, easy access to hwy 8, however again the floodplain issue comes up but this time it's also home to the Jefferson Salamander which is endangered so building anything there is going to be impossible, the area is also one of the richest in KW and they have some very loud NIMBY voices.

The Northwest campus of UWaterloo has also been brought up before since it's large enough, it's primary problems are its far from the expressway and the LRT, UW doesn't really have medical programs (pharmacy/optometry/kin/health sci aside) so its certainly conceivable that they might want to have a teaching hospital.

The general consensus from reddit is that it's going to be the Aud, North Campus or out in the middle of nowhere.

In terms of the actually properties it's been an extremely secretive process but now that it's into the final stages things have started to trickle out (how accurate is up for future discussion) but from what's been said the three properties are the Aud lands, lands out by the Boardwalk (kilometers of strip malls and roundabouts), then the last location is on land UW owns and they're potentially considering a land grant for it.

 

[ericmacm]

I think that the Aud actually makes a lot of sense for a potential site, as Kitchener has, over the last few years, been discussing potentially building a new arena downtown with higher capacity.

 

[ShonTron]

I like the Aud site too, despite it being a bit distant from the LRT spine. It’s still relatively easy to serve by transit. The University of Waterloo North Campus would have been perfect, but it’s partially built up now with tech firms.

The helipad does not necessarily mean the new KW Hospital would have a trauma centre – Credit Valley Hospital has a helipad. It would allow for quick emergency transport to a trauma centre (Hamilton General, Sunnybrook, SickKids, or St. Mike’s).

Windsor has a trauma centre but no medical school too.

 

[ZEBuilder]

I like the Aud site too, despite it being a bit distant from the LRT spine. It’s still relatively easy to serve by transit. The University of Waterloo North Campus would have been perfect, but it’s partially built up now with tech firms.

The helipad does not necessarily mean the new KW Hospital would have a trauma centre – Credit Valley Hospital has a helipad. It would allow for quick emergency transport to a trauma centre (Hamilton General, Sunnybrook, SickKids, or St. Mike’s).

Windsor has a trauma centre but no medical school too.

Another thing about the Aud is it's right along where the region is doing very initial planning work for a phase 3 LRT. Obviously things can change but as per ROPA 6 (Regional Official Plan Amendment 6) Ottawa St is marked as a future higher order transit route.

In particular section 2.D.3.5 says:
"As part of the next update to the Region's Transportation Master Plan, the Region, in collaboration with the area municipalities, will examine the potential for establishing a new ION rapid transit route along the east-west Regional Intensification Corridor (Ottawa St)"

 

[jamincan]

There is an express bus route from Borden Station along Ottawa Street that would get people to the Aud lands in a couple minutes, but it only runs every 30 minutes at the moment.