Centura St. Anthony Central will continue providing care to the Denver neighborhood it has served for 115 years even after its move to a new, $500 million facility in Lakewood, the hospital’s chief executive said Monday.
George Zara, St. Anthony’s chief executive, said the hospital “is committed to having some type of services here,” but has not decided just what those services will be.
The hospital is located just north of Colfax Avenue between Quitman and Raleigh streets.
The new facility – a 311-bed hospital – will be located on 45 acres of the former Denver Federal Center near Alameda Boulevard and Union Boulevard west of Denver.
Zara unveiled designs for the new hospital Monday.
While no groundbreaking date has been set, project director Bob Wallace said plans call for the new hospital – St. Anthony West – to see its first patients in late 2009.
Centura will operate both hospitals for about two years and close St. Anthony Central sometime in 2011.
Last May, a neighborhood task force presented recommendations for redevelopment of the old hospital site.
No decision has been made on those recommendations, which include a variety of residential and retail uses.
Zara said St. Anthony is committed to the neighborhood. What remains to be worked out, he said is “what form and shape that takes.”
Catholic Health Initiatives, which provides financial backing and calls itself a “sponsor” of Centura, has agreed to pay for the Lakewood project.
Transfer of the land to the hospital from the federal government has not been completed yet, and the hospital development still must be approved by the city of Lakewood.
Although the new hospital will be on a site nearly three times larger than the current hospital’s 16 acres, St. Anthony West will have 40 percent fewer patient beds than St. Anthony Central’s 593 beds.
The new seven-story hospital will have greater capacity in its surgery areas and its cardiac lab, more space for outpatient visits and 200,000 to 250,000 additional square feet of medical-office space, Wallace said.
In addition, plans call for separate, adjoining towers for orthopedics, neurology and cardiology and women’s services.
Wallace said St. Anthony intends to retain its status as one of three hospitals designated by the state to receive the most critically injured trauma patients. The new hospital will have two helicopter landing pads.
Staff writer Karen Augé can be reached at 303-954-1733 or kauge@denverpost.com.
