NCH revises new parking garage and landscaping to appease residential neighbors
The city of Naples Design Review Board approved preliminary plans for NCH Healthcare System’s new heart, vascular and stroke center that is proposed at its downtown campus.
The panel added conditions that address such things as more landscaping around a new parking garage, softening the entrance to the heart building and reducing the amount of glass in the heart building.
The design panel said nighttime renderings are needed to show what exterior and interior lighting would look like because of the nearby residential neighborhood.
NCH’s planners also need to look at ramping into the building from the Garden of Hope and Courage, the hospital park that is adjacent to the proposed site for the heart center.
The hospital system has been working on the $200-million project for more than a year that would be built at the site of the Telford Education Center next to the Baker Hospital Downtown. Telford would be demolished.
NCH says the new heart center would provide better care for patients in one setting, would offer the latest in heart and stroke care so patients don’t have to travel out of town, and would help with recruiting top-notch heart specialists.
In a statement after the design board review decision, Paul Hiltz, president and chief executive officer, said patients and the community are one step closer to having world-class facilities with the planned heart and stroke center.
“We appreciate the collaboration with the (design board) and city and look forward to moving our plans forward this fall so we can continue to elevate our critical care services in the heart of Naples,” he said.
The downtown campus and Telford building have existed for decades between Fourth Avenue North, Eighth Street North, Second Avenue North and Sixth Street North.
There’s been extensive back and forth between NCH and city residents over the heart center plans, especially with homeowners along Sixth Street North and nearby who said the new heart center and parking garage would dramatically alter and intrude into the neighborhood.
In February, the design and review board had its first look at the plans and directed NCH to make revisions so the heart center is less intrusive into the neighborhood and to tone down the glass and contemporary look.
The design board on Wednesday spent about 20 minutes discussing the revisions, with the majority saying NCH did a good job listening to the board and neighbors.
Board member David Driapsa was the lone exception who voted against allowing the plans to go to the next step.
He said the plans didn’t fit criteria of the design review board’s job and doesn’t belong where it is planned, especially along Sixth Street North.
“My duty as a board member is to speak out for this community, for the preservation of our established neighborhoods,” he said. “I think this is wrong.”
Where does the project go from here?
NCH has a long way to go with the project in the city’s review process.
The next step is for the hospital to request that the project site be rezoned into the city’s public services zoning district where all uses are conditional and must be approved by the city council.
The city council agreed to add a community hospital in that zoning category as a way for NCH to work around the 42-foot height limit for commercial
buildings in the city. Residents approved the height limit in a voter referendum in 2000.
NCH’s plan is for the heart center to be five stories at 73 feet in height. Rezoning the site into the public services district opens the door for that height if the city council approves it as a conditional use, along with all other design elements.
If the rezoning is approved and NCH obtains a conditional use permit, the next step is for the city to submit a site plan to city staff for an administrative review, according to Erica Martin, the city’s planning director.
From there the site plan would go to the city council which would determine the development standards that would include such things as the setbacks, Martin said.
The design features and what has changed
A critical part of the revisions that NCH made is pushing eastward 20 feet the new parking garage that would be built off Sixth Street North from where it was originally located.
Doing so will create a 60-foot buffer along Sixth Street North to appease the homeowners and would allow mahogany trees on Sixth to remain and allow for more landscaping.
In the revised design, NCH’s team has added a meandering walkway and linear park along Sixth Street that turns the corner to Second Avenue North to connect to the Garden of Hope.
“There is an opportunity for public art that could fit into the park,” said Luke Johnson, with CannonDesign, NCH’s architecture firm.
Planting beds would be incorporated at ground level and there would be horizontal plantings that are elevated to add layers going up along the garage and there would be wood screening, he said.
Those design features would go around the corner along part of Second Avenue North.
Within the heart center building:
- The ground floor would have classrooms, educational space, a gift shop and coffee shop so families of heart patients don’t have to walk to the Baker hospital for coffee.
- The second floor is operating rooms and there would be a connecting corridor to the hospital, along with waiting room, pre-operative and post-operative areas.
- The third floor is slated for medical exam rooms and medical offices and would have a connector to the new parking garage.
- The fourth and fifth floors will each have 27 patient rooms.
- The parking garage would have four levels for a total of 42 feet to the top of the open deck parking. There would be a total of 375 spaces.
What more did the design board say; nearby residents?
Four nearby residents spoke to the design board about the revisions.
Bill Jack, who lives on First Avenue North, urged the design board to outright reject the plan because it fails on multiple levels to comply with the design review board’s handbook.
NCH’s plan does not have a complementary relationship with adjacent properties, he said.
“A four floor parking garage and 75-foot glass and shiny metal tower, no matter how nice they may be in an isolated setting, are not complementary or compatible with the existing hospital structure or immediately adjacent single-family residential community,” he said.
He spoke about the impact to the nearby multi-million dollar homes with noise, security concerns, litter and the lighting that would come from the proposed complex.
Jack also said the project is not necessary because there is ample space in the hospital itself and commercial sides of the campus along Fourth Avenue.
David Henkel, who lives on Second Avenue North, said he still had concerns despite the changes and wondered if any part of the project could be underground.
He said it still has a “looming presence.”
Another nearby resident, Laura Hanson Reynolds, who lives on Sixth Avenue North, wants to see a traffic study done but said NCH has lived up to its promise of listening to the residents concerns and addressing them.
Kathleen Kuhlman, who lives on Seventh Street North, said the project “appears to be more suited to a large urban area” even though she supports how NCH wants a new cardiac center.
Design board members overall praised NCH for the revisions since they looked at the design in February.
“It was a step in the right direction,’ Lindsey Bulloch said, adding that the meandering walkway to the garden was a nice feature. “You took every element into consideration.”
Board member Mike Faucett said he liked how the project connects to the garden which is somewhat isolated from the community.
“Hats off to that,” he said.
Driapsa, who objected to the design, stuck to his position in February that the garden can be moved and the project be built off Eighth Street.
He said the Baker hospital is aging and when it gets replaced, it would be pushed more west toward the homes along Sixth Street North.
“(The garden) can be recreated,” he said. “You cannot recreate the neighborhood.”
Board chairman Stephen Hruby said he wants to see landscaping along all sides of the parking garage and less wood.
“Cover up the building with greenery,” he said. “We don’t want to see the garage anywhere.”
In terms of the shape of the heart center building, he said it is out of context with the campus, and he pointed out the entrance to the heart center looks like an airport entrance and needed softening.
Hruby said he wants to see the lighting inside and outside. Driapsa said the building needed a transition from the garden side into the heart center for wheelchairs.
