News

LIGHTNING EDITORIAL: New chapter opens this week

By Bill Moss, Published: March 18, 2015

Here's hoping that by the time officials turn a ceremonial shovel of dirt on Thursday, the five-headed creature that gave birth to the medical education building has a proper name for the project.

There we go again, dropping a name.
To review, an unprecedented five-party agreement last April produced a pact to share in the cost of a $32 million three-story building on the west end of the Pardee Hospital campus to be occupied by Wingate University, Blue Ridge Community College and the hospital. The city of Hendersonville bought and cleared the land for the project and Henderson County is financing and building the structure, with input from tenants. Lease payments from Wingate and Pardee would cover debt service.
It's all good. The mid- to long-range impact of the building on our community is unknowable as far as the details go but the joint project has the potential to bring new business and residential development, maybe even badly needed affordable housing to the area. As we said in this space last spring, the transformative power of the building is to let everyone know that Hendersonville is a community on the march, unafraid to take a big step for economic development, post-secondary education and health care.
The Pardee Cancer Center is planned as a model of cancer care delivery of the future, what with the new spaces for serenity and modern equipment for use by Pardee's already top-quality team of oncologists.
The building has not been without its critics.
During a March 5 meeting of the Hendersonville City Council, residents raised concerns about construction noise and traffic, parking at night near their homes and the general disruption of life in the relatively quiet North Oak Street environs. There's no way around the fact that construction will create some inconvenience, no matter the assurances the council served up about keeping things as orderly as possible.
The first real controversy among the parties popped up in that same meeting when City Council members insisted on widening Oak Street by three feet, something architect Chad Robertson opposes for practical and esthetic reasons.
But first, the name.
Some say Joint Medical Education Center, others say Joint Health Education Center, still others lean toward Joint Health Education Facility and Health Sciences building. JHEC sounds better to the ear. We lean toward use of the word campus. The images and signage will be as important as the words in conveying a sense of what this building is for and why it's important.
Whatever the name, the groundbreaking this week is an important symbolic opening of a promising chapter in our economic, cultural and political story. That narrative too often has been disrupted by rivalry and squabble. So far, the unity of spirit that produced the five-party agreement seems to be holding. All parties will have to remain disciplined and steadfast as the project goes up in a tight construction schedule.