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Marion council votes to take bids on hospital demolition

By Becky Malkovich, The Southern

Monday, January 12, 2009 11:07 PM CST

MARION - The saga of the old Marion Memorial Hospital - unsuccessfully on the selling block for more than five years - appears to be inching to a close.

Marion city leaders voted Monday night to take bids on demolition of the West Main Street facility that sits on about 14 acres after another potential sale fell through last month.

Commissioner John Goss made the motion to bid out the job of demolishing the property's three structures, with the option of keeping one building - the most viable - intact.

Before making the motion, however, Goss said he wanted to clear up a few misconceptions about the property and its cost to the city.

The city received $10 million from Heartland Regional Medical Center as part of an original agreement, Goss said, put in place when Heartland operated out of the old hospital facility. Heartland constructed a new facility and moved to its location on Illinois 13 in 2002. The Marion Memorial property was then returned to the city.

"Rather than spend approximately $450,000 to demolish and clear the property, the city made the decision to sell the property, which, if sold, would have added another $1 or $2 million, as well as the potential of creating dozens of jobs within the city," Goss said. "Unfortunately, these efforts failed. I've listened to the arguments as to how much the city has lost in the transaction, however, my math tells me differently."

Goss said the city made a profit of $8.7 million after deducting the cost to maintain the property since it took over the property.

"This is in contrast to erroneous allegations that there has been a loss of $1 million, or on one occasion the loss was referred to as $3 million," Goss said.

beckymalk@gmail.com / 927-5633