City-parish to begin evaluating Woman’s Hospital purchase soon

Within the next couple of weeks, Mayor Kip Holden’s office is expected to sign a purchase agreement to buy the former Woman’s Hospital at Airline Highway and Goodwood Boulevard, says spokesman Scott Dyer. That’s when the 150-day inspection period officially begins for determining whether the hospital can be converted to a public safety complex housing the Baton Rouge Police Department and, possibly, the Baton Rouge Fire Department and East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office. On Wednesday, the Metro Council approved the mayor’s signature on the purchase agreement with no objections. The city-parish stands to buy the hospital for $10 million, though the campus had at one time been listed for as much as $19.5 million. Baton Rouge Chief Administrative Officer William Daniel says Woman’s Hospital—which moved last year to a new campus six miles east on Airline Highway—offered the hospital to the city-parish at a bargain rate as part of its desire to do “public good.” The city-parish is putting down a $100,000 refundable deposit on the hospital and estimates it will spend about $100,000 on environmental assessments. “We may use some of it; we may use all of it; we may use a little more,” Daniel says. The 140,000-square-foot Physician’s Tower on campus is expected to house the police department and sheriff’s office. Daniel says 330,000 square feet of the newer portion of the hospital far exceeds the 260,000-square-foot public safety building Holden had called for building as part of a previously failed $102 million bond measure. “We’ll be spending 20 cents on the dollar” in comparison, Daniel says. —Adam Pearson