A board that oversees health-related buildings owned by the county is facing the reality of taking on a landlord role.
The Allen County Regional Hospital’s facilities board recently completed a major renovation of the Medical Arts Building at 826 E. Madison Avenue to house a health clinic, which moved from another facility not owned by the county.
Saint Luke’s Healthy System, which also leases ACRH, agreed to pay $4,938 per month for three years to use about two-thirds of the facility.
Offices in the south part of of the building are leased by four other entities. Two of them — a cardiology clinic and an ear, nose and throat clinic — are longtime tenants who only use the offices a couple of days a week.
The other two — ReNu Medical Spa and Southeast Kansas Mental Health Center — are new.
The facilities board is working on lease agreements with those entities and agreed to give Terry Sparks the ability to negotiate on the board’s behalf.
Sparks said he anticipates charging the mental health center a lower rate because the offices they’ll use weren’t included in the recent remodel. SEKMHC agreed to renovate those offices.
Sparks estimated the county should receive a total of about $6,000 per month in lease payments for the building.
Complicating matters, though, is figuring out who is responsible for supplies and upkeep. It makes sense the county will need to take care of cleaning and basic supplies. But the county doesn’t have vendors for some specialty health supplies such as syringes or the ability to maintain some medical equipment.
Perhaps they can work out an agreement with Saint Luke’s for those things, board members suggested.
THE BOARD also approved and heard updates on various improvement projects.
The board previously approved $91,000 for new HVAC units at the Medical Arts Building. Installation of those units is currently underway.
A handrail also has been installed at the facility.
The board approved spending $2,645 plus tax to Glass Depot to install panic alarms on auxiliary doors.
They also heard an update from Frank Hayden, Saint Luke’s facilities director, about the likelihood they’ll need to install new humidifiers at the hospital. The humidifiers are used during surgery and existing units are undersized. So far, they’ve been able to stay within the threshold required for surgeries, Hayden said, but he’s worried that won’t always be true. He’s asked an engineer to analyze the system and make recommendations.
IN OTHER news, the board agreed to extend a contract with Larry Peterson for accounting services through July 1.
