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Negotiations continue on new hospital in Summit County

Jim Pokrandt

FRISCO – Negotiations continue on building a new hospital in Summit County, and County Manager Ron Holliday remains confident ground can be broken next spring.

Holliday and the Board of County Commissioners are fulcrum points in the effort to build a new hospital because the county owns the land behind the County Commons near Frisco where the hospital will go.

“I am very optimistic,” Holliday said, noting preliminary engineering of the 17-acre site is already underway.



He also said talks with the Colorado Department of Transportation about a new access to the hospital site from Highway 9 have started. The access would be across from the Forest Service work road on the Frisco peninsula.

Parties to the hospital negotiation include St. Anthony’s/Centura, which owns and operates the Summit Medical Center, and a consortium of local doctors.



The hospital would improve on the range of medical care offered at Summit Medical Center. St. Anthony’s moves many cases to its Denver St. Anthony’s Central Hospital. Otherwise, locals are forced to go to the Vail Valley Medical Center for more extensive hospital care.

St. Anthony’s would build and operate the hospital, while the doctors would build and populate a medical office building next door.

Because of Catholic doctrine, certain procedures relating to reproductive issues cannot be performed in St. Anthony’s facilities. Holiday said part of the negotiation is figuring out what procedures can take place in a separate medical office building.

Holliday’s optimism for the project is tempered with a frustration that the negotiating parties and their attorneys are having scheduling difficulties.

“We’ve got to get everybody in the same room and get the deal closed,” he said. “Everybody is negotiating in good faith. I think it is a matter of getting everybody locked in the same room.”

The county manager noted that negotiations among the doctors are separate and just as important “so we don’t have civil war break out there.”


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