New hospital proposed to meet Vegas growth

David Strow

Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2001 | 10:32 a.m.

Catholic Healthcare West became the latest company to join in the Las Vegas health care building boom Monday, announcing plans to build a $190 million hospital campus on the southwest side of the Las Vegas Valley.

The 200-bed center, on Warm Springs Road between Buffalo and Durango Drives, would be the third in CHW's local St. Rose Dominican hospital chain. It is the fifth pending hospital project in the Las Vegas area, the nation's most rapidly growing large metropolitan area.

"It's pretty recognized within the health care industry in Las Vegas that right now we need more hospital beds, and that problem will only get worse as we continue to grow," said St. Rose President Rod Davis.

Nowhere is that more true than the southwest valley, Davis said.

"That part of the valley is probably more distant from health care facilities than any other location in the valley," Davis said.

The closest hospital to the proposed St. Rose Dominican campus is Summerlin hospital, located 9 miles away, said Vic Donovan, vice president of management services for real estate brokerage Colliers International. Prior to joining Colliers earlier this year, Donovan oversaw the design and construction of medical office buildings for PM Realty Group.

Currently, that's not much of an issue, since there's little development in the area. That's expected to change rapidly in the next couple of years.

"That whole area is developing very fast, and there is no medical facility in that area, so I think the market's a perfect fit," Donovan said. "I think you'll see a couple of medical campuses going up in that area. Groups I have worked with in the past have all expressed interest in that market."

HCA, the nation's largest for-profit hospital chain, has had the same thought. The company is now finalizing its plans to build its third Las Vegas hospital in that area, at the intersection of Fort Apache and Sunset Roads -- within a few miles of the St. Rose Dominican site.

"We're not speeding up or slowing down our plans to develop in that area ... it's steady as she goes," said Ann Lynch, spokeswoman for HCA-owned Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center. "We'd been thinking and visualizing and planning (a hospital there) for over a year. This is an area that's underserved, and we made a commitment to go there."

The timeframe, cost and size of the HCA hospital is as yet undetermined, Lynch said.

"It's difficult to get a timeframe until you get your permits, and we're in the process of doing that," Lynch said.

On its current development cycle, the demand for a new medical center devoted to the area will probably be in place by 2003 or 2004, Donovan said. St. Rose has targeted 2004 as the opening date for the new hospital.

Though it's a non-profit chain, Catholic Healthcare West has considerable financial firepower. Its 47 hospitals in California, Arizona and Nevada recorded $4.51 billion in operating revenues in the fiscal year ended June 30, 2000 (the last reported by the chain). That's a 13 percent increase over fiscal 1999 -- though the organization did report an operating loss of $307 million for the year.

Hospital No. 48 for the chain was the 200-bed St. Rose Siena campus, opened a year ago on Eastern Avenue south of the Beltway in Henderson. St. Rose is already moving toward expanding that hospital, with plans to add 60 beds by 2003.

Beyond that, "we'll continue to review the needs of the de Lima campus (further east in Henderson), and make sure its services continue to be state-of-the art," Davis said. "In terms of additional locations beyond this one (in southwest Las Vegas), we don't have anything in the immediate future."

Three other hospital projects are now on the drawing board for the Las Vegas Valley:

* Universal Health Services, a big operator with three local hospitals, plans to build a fourth on Craig Road in North Las Vegas. It received approval for a 180-bed hospital from the North Las Vegas Planning Commission in June, and UHS officials said prior to this approval that they expected it would take two and a half years to develop the hospital. UHS officials could not be reached for comment for an update on their plans.

* Park Place Medical LLC, an independent company, is currently developing a 120-bed hospital on Losee Road in North Las Vegas. Construction began in July, and the hospital is expected to open in 2003.

* Radix LLC, a second independent development company, has announced plans to build a $700 million, 800-bed hospital complex somewhere in the Las Vegas Valley. Locations in the northwest valley, the Beltway and Decatur Boulevard, and Henderson have been considered, but a final site won't be selected and acquired until after the group finalizes a financing package, said Bob Nimon, managing partner of Genesis Health Care International Inc., a Houston-based consulting firm working with Radix on the plans.

All the new hospitals now on the drawing board doesn't deter Nimon.

"It's not so much the number of hospitals versus the type of services needed in Las Vegas," Nimon said. "That's really how we begin to look at that market. It's unfair to peg it as one more hospital."

The Radix proposal, called the Nevada Medical Specialty Center, would incorporate at least four specialized hospitals, including a cardiovascular hospital, a children's hospital, a rehabilitation hospital and a behavioral health center.

Can Las Vegas support so many new hospitals? It's possible, given the area's rapid population growth, said Annete Kinsman, director of business development for North Las Vegas-based Lake Mead Hospital.

But there's a bigger problem that must be considered by the developers of these new projects, she said.

"The most important issue here is the staffing," Kinsman said. "None of the hospitals have the nurses they need. We're all running short by quite a bit. I don't know how we're going to be able to open these new hospitals without nurses."

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