By the numbers:
$3.5 million — Cost to demolish the former Mercy Medical Center in Springfield
10 — Acres of land the former hospital spans on Fountain Boulevard
550,000 — Square footage of the vacant hospital
Staying with the story
The Springfield News-Sun has tracked the use of the former hospital sites since the buildings closed several years ago, including stories on demolition of the former Community Hospital and possible re-use of both properties.
The outside walls of the former Mercy Medical Center started to come down Monday as part of a nearly $3.5 million demolition project, although the future of the former hospital site in the heart of a north end Springfield neighborhood remains undecided.
Interior demolition work has been ongoing for several months, including removing asbestos. Crews from Tony Smith Wrecking began tearing down the outside on Monday by breaking a hole into the top floor of the building that sits on about 10 acres of land on Fountain Boulevard.
“This is now the first exterior demolition that’s visible to the community,” said Dave Lamb, spokesman for Community Mercy Health Partners.
Workers will strip the inside of the 550,000-square-feet former hospital and recycle much of the building materials, Lamb said.
The Springfield Regional Imaging Center will remain open during the demolition. It, along with the MercyCrest Medical Arts Building, will remain at the campus.
Community Mercy also recently spent about $1.6 million to renovate a former nursing home on the Fountain Boulevard campus and move more than 50 employees there. Excel Pediatric Rehab occupies the first floor of that building and the upper floors house hospital administration employees in finance, accounts payable, payroll, information technology, long-term care billing, marketing and the Community Mercy Foundation.
Demolition is expected to be completed by June, Lamb said, but no decisions have been made on what to do with the property.
“We are talking with community leaders to envision what kind of development we see for this campus … It’s a really exciting opportunity,” he said. “We have a building, empty building sitting here now so really sky’s the limit as far as what we could put here.”
Lamb wouldn’t speculate about possibilities for the site, but neighbors have some ideas.
“A mini park with a walking track that I can walk my dog on,” Marla Fagans said.
She’s lived across the street from the vacant hospital for five years, which she called ugly. Fagans doesn’t want to see another building on the property.
“I don’t think we need another building,” she said. “There’s a lot of empty space downtown so I think they can use a building downtown or something.”
At one point Wittenberg University had considered purchasing the space, but Lamb said that’s not an option any longer.
“We do have some great partnerships with the university, but not currently for this campus,” he said.
Mercy Medical Center closed in 2010 after merging with Community Hospital to form Community Mercy Health Partners. The new medical group then opened the downtown Springfield Regional Medical Center in late 2011.
It has also torn down the former Community Hospital on Burnett Road and sold that site to Neighborhood Housing Partnership of Greater Springfield. NHP has applied for state income tax credits to build new apartments for seniors there.
The discussions with community leaders on the Mercy site have just started, Lamb said, so it’s too early to say what will happen there.
“We can look to the future to have something new that will serve this community,” he said.
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