HealthPartners officials are moving forward with plans for a proposed $400 million Lakeview Hospital campus at the northeast corner of Minnesota Highway 36 and Manning Avenue in Stillwater, and hope to break ground as early as this summer.
Plans for the new hospital call for a six-story building totaling approximately 400,000 square feet — almost twice the size of the present Lakeview Hospital at Greeley and Churchill streets. Expected to open in late 2027, the new hospital will include emergency medicine, advanced critical care and specialized centers for heart, cancer and orthopedic care.
On Wednesday, HealthPartners officials will present an environmental review of its plan to the city’s planning commission. The environmental assessment worksheet will then go to the Stillwater City Council on March 4, and the council will vote on the distribution and publication of the worksheet by the Minnesota Environmental Quality Board for the required 30-day public comment period, said City Administrator Joe Kohlmann.
A map showing the site plan for the new Lakeview Hospital in Stillwater. (Courtesy of HealthPartners)
After the public comment period has concluded on April 18, the council will decide whether there are any outstanding issues and whether a more detailed environmental review — called an environmental impact statement — needs to be completed, Kohlmann said.
Plans for the new hospital include 804 parking stalls, landscaping, trails, and open spaces that connect to local systems.
In addition, Curve Crest Boulevard will be extended from the southeast corner of the site then routed westerly and northerly to connect to 62nd Street North on the northwest side of the property.
There also will be a realignment of 62nd Street North including a roundabout “to improve neighborhood connectivity as well as to control the flow of traffic,” according to the environmental assessment worksheet.
Community meeting
Lakeview Hospital President Brandi Lunneborg met with nearby residents at a community meeting last week at Bradshaw Celebration of Life Center in Stillwater.
“I think everyone understands that for us to really provide great long-term service to the community, we need to invest in a new campus,” she said. “When we look at our growth, we’re out of space, and there’s just no expansion possibilities where we are today, so we’re excited about being able to grow and meet the needs in the community. People seem very excited about it. Of course, there’s a lot of logistics involved and different questions, so we’re happy to answer those and just keep people engaged.”
Lunneborg said hospital officials have been working with neighbors on concerns about traffic and entrance points. After talking to nearby residents, planners added the roundabout to the plan, she said.
All plans must be approved by the Stillwater City Council. The council could take action on May 6, city officials said.
Baytown Township resident Paul Renslow, a former social studies teacher at Oak-Land Middle School in Lake Elmo, attended the meeting to see the plans firsthand. He thinks the northeast corner of Manning and Minnesota 36 is a great location for a new hospital.
“It’s really the last big piece of open space within the city limits that I’m aware of,” he said. “I’m supportive of community services, whether it’s a hospital, schools, parks, the library, you name it.”
Environmental, noise concerns
Kim Haugen, who lives across the street from the proposed entrance to the new hospital, said she’s concerned about the environmental impacts of the project. She has often spotted an eagle in several trees slated to be cut down.
“There are some big trees — they’re not pretty looking, they’re scraggly looking, but that’s where the eagles hang out,” she said. “Because the property has been dug up for many years now, they’ve been there looking for their snacks, looking for rodents. … I know we can’t stop the hospital — that’s not what I’m trying to do — but we want the eagles to be able to be there.”
Another neighbor, Gillian Stewart, told officials she’s worried about the height of the proposed new hospital. “It’s six stories,” she said. “For all these years, I’ve just looked out at nature all the time, and now I’m going to be looking at a huge building.”
Other wildlife that could be impacted by the project include: the northern long-eared bat, the monarch butterfly and the rusty patched bumble bee, according to the environmental assessment worksheet.
Kelly Seivert, who lives just north of the new hospital site, said she is particularly concerned about the placement of the hospital’s proposed loading dock.
“It’s going to be facing our neighborhood,” she said. “Do you know how much noise comes with a loading dock area? There will be doors slamming open, and the trucks will be beep-beeping. There will be constant deliveries with medications, linens, equipment, hazardous materials, garbage, food, etc.”
According to the environmental assessment worksheet, there will be an increase in noise from additional traffic and emergency vehicles. “The additional noise is considered normal for commercial use,” the worksheet states. “Emergency vehicle noise will be intermittent. The city requires buildings and parking areas be set back from property lines. This provides a buffer area. The buffer area can be landscaped to suppress noise.”
Seivert said the plans for the new hospital don’t fit into her neighborhood’s “small-town atmosphere.”
The Legends neighborhood has “front porches and narrower streets to be reminiscent of our small-town feeling in Stillwater,” she said. “What happened to that vision? It appears we are moving in the opposite direction and are now wanting a big city look, building large-scale, towering buildings that loom over our neighborhoods. That’s not old-town Stillwater. They say, ‘Well, our neighbors love us now.’ But this is going to be twice the size with twice the traffic flow. You cannot compare apples to oranges. This is just phase 1.”
Hospital close to home
Steve Russell, the city’s former community development director, attended the neighborhood meeting and was impressed with Lakeview’s use of open space and making that a major element of the development.
“This area was designated for job use — some light industrial use — when I was there,” he said. “The idea was to tie a job generator in with the neighborhoods: Liberty, Legends and the other expansion areas north of there, so people could work and live in the same area. This provides the opportunity for that connection. I’m sure there will be people who work in the hospital and who will live within a couple of miles of where they work.”
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Council member Mike Polehna said his main concern is keeping increases in traffic under control.
“We insisted on Curve Crest opening to the east, so people don’t have to go all the way around to Manning,” he said.
Polehna, who underwent open-heart surgery a couple of years ago at Regions Hospital in St. Paul, said Stillwater needs a good hospital.
“My cardiologist is at Lakeview,” he said. “I’ve had all my tests since there. I’ve had physical therapy at our hospital. The city has to have a good health care system for the community.”
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