News

Despite traffic concerns, planners OK health-ed project

Planning Board Chairman Steve Orr studies a site plan while Ray Mundy makes a motion to recommend the City Council approve the Joint Health Education Center.

By Bill Moss, Published: February 12, 2015

Despite concerns over traffic, the Hendersonville Planning Board on Monday unanimously recommended that the City Council approve development plans for the 98,000-square-foot Joint Health Education Center on Sixth Avenue at North Oak Street.
The $32 million joint project of Henderson County, the city of Hendersonville, Wingate University, BRCC and Pardee Hospital will include classrooms, labs and offices for the community college and Wingate and the new Pardee Cancer Center on the ground floor.
Although designers have added a second entrance into the property between Justice and Oak streets, they did not recommend widening Oak Street or installing traffic signals.
"The project's great but I just don't see this street handling all that additional traffic," Planning Board member Ben Pace said.
Chad Roberson, the chief architect on the project, told the Planning Board that traffic engineers had recommended adjusting the traffic light timing on Sixth Avenue at Justice Street, aligning Seventh Avenue with the parking lot entrance on Oak Street and widening Oak Street by four feet. The last recommendation is not doable, he said, because designers are trying to create space between the street and the building.
The engineers recommended against installing a traffic light at Oak Street or aligning the streets, which are offset at Sixth Avenue.
Engineers have designed a new entrance into the Pardee campus east of the Medical Office Building made up of two 15-foot driveways separated by a 14-foot landscaped median. For now, there are no plans to install a stoplight.
"Anyone turning left out of there — it's going to be wicked," board member Jon Blatt said.
City Planning Director Sue Anderson said the entire area is the subject of a comprehensive traffic study that will take into account the new health-education building, medical campus traffic, car trips generated by three schools and future growth. The city plans to build on the findings of a traffic impact study the health-ed building engineers have already completed. The new facility is projected to generate 2,992 car trips a day.
Approval for the $32 million project technically came in two parts. The Planning Board voted to OK an amendment to the original Medical Office Building site plan then recommend approval of the project on 2.8 acres. With a new parking lot across Oak Street adding 67 spaces and other parking on the Pardee campus, the complex meets the parking requirement of 247 spaces, Anderson said. The Planning Board also OK'd a rear setback variance allowing the developer to site a dumpster, generator and chiller on a 21x93-foot pad on the rear property line.
Construction on the three-story building is expected to begin by spring with an opening date in time for classes in the late summer of 2016.