As Ochsner Health pushes forward with plans to build a new?children’s hospital?facility on Jefferson Highway, nearby residents showed up by the dozens Thursday to express concern about potential traffic and drainage problems as well as future encroachments by the hospital into residential areas.
It was the fourth neighborhood meeting organized by Ochsner to detail its plans for the new Gayle and Tom Benson Ochsner Children’s Hospital, which would sit just next door to the main Ochsner hospital in Old Jefferson. Behind the hospital, Ochsner plans to build a five-story parking garage.
Ochsner is also in the process of building a?new 132,000-square-foot?neuroscience facility across the street from the main campus.
“I feel like you’re breathing down my neck,” said Renee Brayden, who lives on Coolidge Avenue, close to where Ochsner bought six residential homes that are used to house employees. “It doesn’t make me feel good about Ochsner as a neighbor.”?
As currently designed, the new children's hospital would be built along Betz Avenue between Jefferson Highway and River Road, with the main entrance facing Jefferson Highway. To make room for it, Ochsner said parking lots and hospital-owned houses on Betz must be demolished.?
Next week, hospital officials are scheduled to appear before the Jefferson Parish Planning Advisory Board with a request to merge several individually zoned lots with the Ochsner campus lot, rezone parts of the area for a hospital and purchase a block of Betz. The Jefferson Parish Planning Department has already approved the plan. The matter will go before the full Jefferson Parish Council for a final vote at a future meeting.
At Thursday's meeting, Ochsner officials said the hospital has committed to stop purchasing single-family residential properties in the neighborhood.
“We heard from you guys that it was concerning you that we were buying other residential properties in areas around here and that meant that we were going to do some kind of development like this in those areas,” Emily Arata, System Vice President of Community Affairs at Ochsner Health, told a packed auditorium.
New children’s hospital
In December, Ochsner announced that a sizeable donation from Saints and Pelicans owner Gayle Benson would allow it to build a brand new facility for it's children’s hospital, which is currently housed inside the main hospital.?
The 343,000-square-foot, five-story complex will offer specialty pediatric services including a cardiac critical care unit, a larger and more accessible emergency room, a Level IV surgical neonatal intensive care unit and enhanced operating rooms and imaging services. It will also double capacity of an existing epilepsy monitoring unit.?
Arata said Ochsner hopes the facility will entice specialists from around the country to work at Ochsner and increase patient capacity.
Dr. William "Billy" Lennarz, System Chair of Pediatrics, said Ochsner has recruited top doctors from renowned children's hospitals across the country to do complex operations and procedures that patients once had to seek out of state. But with its current space embedded within the main Ochsner hospital, they often reach capacity and need to turn patients away.?
"This is an opportunity to create an environment for families where everyone from the valet driver to discharge is committed 100% to kids and is used to working with kids and their families," he said.?
The proposed site was selected because of its proximity to the main campus and utility plant, Arata said. Most of the site is already zoned for a hospital, and the rest includes residential homes already owned by Ochsner.
Ochsner has set aside a sliver of land along River Road to make a public pocket park, she said, and plans to build a crosswalk on River Road to create easier access to the levee path.?
Arata also said that Ochsner may use the space next to the new hospital to build a new Brent House Hotel, moving the hotel from its current home on 1512 Jefferson Highway, though plans have not been solidified.
Construction for the hospital and garage are slated to begin in 2025 and be completed in 2027.
Traffic and drainage concerns
To the north of Jefferson Highway,?construction has begun on a new neuroscience facility?that will house neurology, neurosurgery and behavioral health specialists, and another five-story parking garage. The neuroscience facility will employ between 75 and 100 people and expects around 250 patients daily, Arata said.
As Ochsner builds out and draws more employees and patients, some residents said they fear traffic pileups and stress on local drainage.??
Darlene Spahn, a lifelong neighborhood resident,?said from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. Jefferson Highway already “is like being in L.A.”
Another neighbor was met with resounding applause when she asked about traffic considerations because she wanted to ensure “this isn’t an airport situation – build an airport then figure out how to get people there.”
To handle increased capacity, Ochsner has asked the parish to allow them to widen Deckbar Road to include a median?and to add a turning lane northbound at Jefferson Highway and southbound at River Road.
The project also includes a plan to enlarge existing drainage culverts and onsite underground water detention sites which will slow the flow of water out of the site in the event of a storm.
The Planning Advisory Board will consider Ochsner's request at their June 20 meeting at the Yenni Building in Elmwood at 5 p.m.