WWW arkcity.net

By FOSS FARRAR
Traveler Staff Writer

Leaders of the CoVista Medical Center project may seek governmental funding for the building of a new Arkansas City hospital. Construction on the new facility has been stalled for a year following a groundbreaking ceremony in April 2006.

Despite a failed effort to secure a federal loan by hospital officials several years ago, CoVista project leaders may look at governmental funding as an alternative to getting a private loan, officials said Thursday.

CoVista would be located two miles northwest of town. It would replace South Central Kansas Regional Medical Center, the current Ark City hospital at First Street and Birch Avenue.

The CoVista project grew out of the ashes of that failed effort to get a $25 million loan from the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development. The CoVista plan was announced about a year ago by a group of local doctors who teamed up with Wichita-based Cardiovascular Hospitals of America.

They wanted to build a for-profit hospital and become its owners. The city agreed to hand over $4 million in assets of the current medical center for the new facility.

The medical center now is controlled by a Board of Trustees appointed by city commissioners.

The doctors and CHA actually represent 99 percent of the ownership of CoVista. CHA is the majority owner, 51 percent. The City of Arkansas City represents the remaining 1 percent.

The funding issue came to light after a trip last month by city officials to Washington, D.C. Four city commissioners and the city manager met with U.S. legislators from Kansas, and the CoVista construction project was a main topic of discussion.

City Commissioner Arleta Rice said she and her city colleagues met with Rep. Todd Tiahrt, Sen. Sam Brownback and Sen. Pat Roberts while in Washington.

"We just explained that we had worked for two years and spent $1 million in fees to prepare (a federal loan) application before it fell through," Rice said. "So we went to work with a group of doctors in Wichita confident they could get funding arranged. We even had a groundbreaking."

But in recent months it became apparent that the project wasn't making headway, she added.

The new hospital project has been in the works for well over five years. The new CoVista facility is to be built on land south of Strother Field that was donated by its former owners, who have died, Rice said.

A SCKRMC spokesman confirmed that CoVista project leaders are considering more funding options.

All financing options are on the table after months of seeking private funding for the project, said Clayton Pappan, director of marketing for South Central Kansas Regional Medical Center.

"We're still in the exploratory stage," Pappan said.

Leaders of the CoVista project had not yet narrowed their efforts to any particular funding option, he said.

"They are looking at what potential lenders could bring to this project, and now are trying to nail down what a new facility would look like," he said.