Some stories have you scratching your head, trying to figure out if they are good news or bad.
On one hand, a 50 bed hospital that will employ 120 people is good! Heathcare is one of the only sectors of the economy that is still expanding (look at the buildings going up in the OSU hospital area). Healthcare is a stable, long term business that generally has good wages and few externalization problems. The facility will need a lot of parking slots, but not much more than any other business. It will create no noise problems or police issues like a bar (I doubt the rehab patents will be allowed to wander around the area causing problems).
However – this is not what we were expecting back when G.Y. was hoped to be the “mini Easton”. A look for healthcare facilities in the Easton directory shows a few medical offices, a sleep center, and a lasik surgery clinic. Those are good tenants, but not regional draws. The major retail businesses that were to be the center of the Yard have yet to sign up.
As far as the HealthSouth corp. that is running the new facility – you don’t get much worse back-story for a business. Read the bio of Richard Scrushy, the founder. A southern kid who dropped out of school, he went on to a career in healthcare and founded HealthSouth in 1984. Quoting the wiki:
At its height, HealthSouth employed more than 50,000 physicians, was the “nation’s largest provider of outpatient surgery and rehabilitative and diagnostic healthcare services”, and had over 2,000 facilities in the United States, Puerto Rico, Australia, and the United Kingdom. HealthSouth facilities worldwide saw more than 120,000 patients daily, and with earnings around $106 million in 1997, Scrushy was the third highest paid CEO in the United States.
Then the fall. He had charges brought against him by the SEC, but beat them in 2005. This was followed by an indictment that included 30 counts of money laundering, extortion, obstruction of justice, racketeering, and bribery . He was convicted and sentenced to 6 years in jail. The investors won a suit and have tried to recover billions from the guy.
Obviously Scrushy is long gone from the corporate offices at HealthSouth, but a company with that sort of history doesn’t really inspire confidence.
More from HealthSouth at a Grandview Heights Planning Commission meeting.
“The facility will provide rehabilitation services for patients with health issues relating to such conditions as brain, cardiac and spinal-cord injuries … about 130 employees, with an average salary of just under $70,000”, Wilson said.
August 2013 update: This story on CBF says HealthSouth’s Grandview Yard plans in limbo. Yikes.
Oct 2014 update: Another story about HealthSouth looking at Westerville for a potential hospital site, but no word of how the plans in Grandview are going.
June 2015 update: The Westerville rehab hospital is being built. I don’t think the Grandview Hts. location is going to happen.
Watching Grandview Heights 