|
The City of Greer entered into a contract on Friday, July 17 with InSite Consulting, LLC, of Greer, which will provide advisory services to the city for the redevelopment of the Allen Bennett Memorial Hospital and Roger Huntington Nursing Center campus.
The minimum fee is $36,000 to be paid over eight months. In the announcement released by the city late Friday it said the fee will be reimbursed through the purchase price of the site, according to Greer City Administrator Ed Driggers. There wasn’t any mention how the cost would be recouped if there were no bidders for the property. According to the Greer Commission of Public Works, it costs
about $45,160 for monthly utilities of the hospital campus since the beginning of this year. The winner city takes over those expenses
once the contract with GHS is signed and the property is transferred.
City Council went into executive session last Tuesday to empower Driggers to enter into a contract. It was approved 5-1 with councilman Wayne Griffin dissenting.
“This was part of the proposal Reno (Deaton, Greer Development Corporation Executive Director) suggested,” said Mayor Rick Danner. “It gives us a chance to market the building and get requests for proposals.
I thought the fee was low because InSite Consulting is a local company and it will cut down on travel expenses.”
The site, located on Wade Hampton Blvd., includes the Memorial Hospital building, which is approximately 170,000 square feet, as
well as the 30,000 square foot former Roger Huntington Nursing Center.
The entire site occupies approximately seven acres.
“I suspect we will get all types of interest,” Tonya Crist, managing partner/ owner of InSite, said. “We will sit down with the city of Greer team and find out what type of personality they want with the development – commercial or mixed use.”
Large quantities of asbestos have been removed from both buildings over the past 20 years, but some of the hazardous material remains in each structure.
Crist said that shouldn’t hinder businesses seeking to buy the property.
The site has been offered as a gift to the City of Greer by the Greenville Hospital System. A subcommittee of the GHS board approved
the gift in June and the full board must vote on the matter before the former hospital campus changes hands. The full board is next scheduled to meet in September.
InSite, from Greer, will design and develop a Request for Proposals (RFP), a process that, according to the contract, “will solicit proposals from qualified firms for the redevelopment of the Allen Bennett Memorial Hospital property, taking into consideration the existing conditions and unique location of the site.”
“One of the exciting things about InSite is, with its experience, it can cast a much larger net to potential bidders,” Danner said.
InSite has performed site selection services for some of the world’s most prestigious companies including Shell Oil, Caterpillar, and Mercedes–Benz.
A tentative agreement between the city and GHS calls for the documents to be signed and the city take possession of the buildings by Sept. 30.
The expected firm is likely to be announced by Spring of 2010, said Crist.
 Email This Post
|
