St. Charles Parish Hospital is considering locating a proposed primary and after-hours care center near Destrehan Plantation, hospital officials announced Monday. Hospital officials say they are in talks with The Prince's Foundation for Building Community, one of 17 not-for-profit organizations headed by Prince Charles of Wales, to re-develop , which now owns the site of the former Pan Am...
St. Charles Parish Hospital is considering locating a proposed primary and after-hours care center near Destrehan Plantation, hospital officials announced Monday.
Hospital officials say they are in talks with The Prince's Foundation for Building Community, one of 17 not-for-profit organizations headed by Prince Charles of Wales, to re-develop property owned by BP , which now owns the site of the former Pan Am refinery near the plantation house. The refinery closed in 1958.
The medical clinic project will move forward if voters approve the hospital's request to borrow $15 million backed by an existing 3.16 mill property tax dedicated to construction projects in an April 21 referendum.
The other hospital projects earmarked for the revenue is the creation of a cardiac cauterization unit for testing such as angiograms, new ambulances, and a new outpatient center for heart, lung, vision and bone care at the hospital's main campus in Luling.
The outpatient clinic will be dedicated to adult care and to after-hours primary care.
BP has hired the foundation, to jump-start development of the 165-acre property in a "town center " concept containing retail, service businesses and a business incubator, said Ann Daigle, the New Orleans-area program manager for the foundation.
The foundation currently operates a crafts apprenticeship program in collaboration with the Preservation Resource Center and Delgado Community College in New Orleans.
Daigle said in an e-mail that one of her corporation's tasks is to choose a master developer for the site.
"There will be a transfer of ownership, but those details have not been worked out," she said.
According to marketing information provided by the foundation, the Market Place will be on the property's southwest corner with light industrial uses located on the north side of the property close to the Canadian National Railroad tracks.
BP has been working to put the 165-acre property back into commerce for years.
It obtained the site when it acquired Amoco in 1998. The company later donated 5.18 acres of the property to St. Charles Parish for the construction of the parish's East Regional Library in 2006, in exchange for the parish building a divided access road to the building.
BP owns some 1,400-acres that were once a part of the refinery's property, much of it wetlands.