SMC looks to purchase county lands for expansion
Photo by CHANSE WATSON The Wellness Center in Smelterville is already home to a variety of Shoshone Medical Center’s different departments and services, including the wound care center and cardiac and pulmonary rehab facilities.
Photo by CHANSE WATSON The land looking west of the Wellness Center that SMC is hoping to acquire from the Shoshone County to expand their services.
WALLACE — The Shoshone Board of County Commissioners recently met with Shoshone Medical Center CEO Jerry Brantz regarding the potential acquisition of county-owned lands just west of SMC’s Wellness Center in Smelterville.
Brantz gave the BOCC a run down of the many operations that SMC already has throughout the Silver Valley on Oct. 3, including their newer clinic in Smelterville, as well as the ongoing success of the wound care center and cardiac and pulmonary rehab facilities.
Brantz, along with some of SMC board members are now looking to continue growing and would like to see that growth happen right next to one of their current locations.
“We’re out of space, we are literally out of space inside the hospital,” Brantz said. “Our education room is 100 square feet that can house four people. We have nowhere to put anything new.”
SMC has listed their Community Outreach Center in Pinehurst for sale in hopes that once they acquire the land from the county in Smelterville, they can then consolidate the outreach center with new facilities on their new Smelterville campus.
While SMC has no concrete plans on what they’d like to bring in just yet, they are working with the mentality of being proactive instead of reactive.
“We feel strongly that waiting until the day that you have an idea is not the way to go or the time to start putting something in place,” Brantz said. “Having the facility sitting there, ready to go, not saying ‘hey we need a new service, now let’s go find land or a building to put it in.’ We don’t want to be reactive here.”
Brantz used the example of the new clinic in Smelterville, citing his board’s decision to hear their patient’s demands for a place they could go to get clinical-style care. SMC was then able to have this service set up in a matter of months in a building they already were operating out of.
“We’ve expanded that clinic facility out to about 6,000 square feet and are on pace to see 5,000 visits this year,” Brantz said.
The BOCC has received an offer from SMC of $116,000 for the 4.5 acres of land directly west of the property it already owns at 858 Commerce Drive.
While it is a lower offer than what they expected to get for the land, the BOCC are happy to begin the dialogue with SMC and hopefully find a number they both agree on in a short amount of time.
The county currently owns 15 acres of land between the Wellness Center and the Smelterville sewage treatment ponds.
“The number they provided was just a little lower than what we were looking for, but not far off,” said Mike Fitzgerald, BOCC chairman. “The sale of this property would allow us to put in the infrastructure out there that would get us to the highest and best use. This is right on mark of where we want to go. You guys have the need and are filling so many niches, we are really happy that if we make this move, it would be a good move for our community.”
The BOCC wants to make sure that it handles the sale of these lands properly and wants to continue to meet with SMC over the coming weeks to hammer out the details to ensure everything gets done the proper way and also is mutually beneficial to both the county and Shoshone Medical Center.
The next meeting is slated for sometime later this month, after Oct. 21.