Atlanta officials quietly plan for new hospital
When Atlanta City Council members got the first look this week at a sweeping list of projects Mayor Andre Dickens hopes to fund through a tax allocation district extension, one entry was a surprise.
Project Robin. Price tag $800 million.
While most of the projects included on the more than 200-item list were well-known Dickens priorities, Project Robin — categorized as a health venture — was a mystery.
A person familiar with the proposal who was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the project includes a new hospital campus with community health clinics. That information was confirmed by a second source inside City Hall who also did not have authority to speak publicly.
A new health care facility is much-needed within the city to help fill gaps in medical services left by the closure of Atlanta Medical Center in the Old Fourth Ward neighborhood, and Atlanta Medical Center-South in the city of East Point.
The project list notes that the city plans to put $115 million of Beltline TAD revenue toward the unnamed hospital.
The person familiar with the TAD proposal called it a “historic investment in addressing health care access disparities” in the city and said negotiations are ongoing, with Fulton County participation required to get the project off the ground.
But two big questions remain: If the money will really materialize, and if so, where that hospital would be.
The issue of whether to extend the tax districts is a controversial one, that would dedicate nearly 15% of the city’s tax digest to what are essentially restricted funds separate from the city’s general revenue.
The plan also requires approval from Atlanta City Council, Fulton County and the Atlanta school board.
But the city is already making plans on how to spend the $5.5 billion in revenue that an extension of all eight of Atlanta’s TADs is estimated to bring in. The more popular the projects, the more political pressure to get it passed.
There is little dispute that a new Atlanta hospital is needed. The closure of AMC flooded other hospitals with their patient base and left the surrounding hospitals’ ERs gasping for air.
As of early afternoon Thursday, the ERs at Grady Memorial Hospital and Piedmont Atlanta were both marked as “dangerously overcrowded” on a regional routing system, so much so they were announcing that ambulances should find somewhere else to go.
If a new hospital ends up picking up the slack, there’s no sign that it would be where the old AMC was. That building is in the process of being torn down, and those planning the new development there have mentioned no hospital. Developers on the project say it would be a mixed-use hub with housing, retail, commercial offices and “health and well-being” resources.
Some signs, however, point to another potential hospital site, just south of I-20. That one is within the Beltline TAD district.
The hospital system Atrium Health quietly purchased 40 acres of land there last year, just across the interstate from Morehouse School of Medicine. Atrium has partnered with Morehouse School of Medicine elsewhere in town running a clinic.
Atrium won’t say why it bought the land.
But a new provision in state law would lift a major bureaucratic hurdle for Atrium if it chose to use that land to partner with Morehouse School of Medicine to run a hospital.
The sources would not speak about the potential location of the proposed hospital. Representatives of Atrium and the site developer did not respond to telephone calls about the matter from the AJC.
Dickens’ Chief of Staff Courtney English, who is spearheading the effort to extend the TADs, declined to comment on details surrounding Project Robin and a new hospital’s location.
— Staff reporter Zach Hansen contributed to this report.
About the Authors
Riley Bunch is a reporter on the local government team at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution covering Atlanta City Hall. She covers the mayor and Atlanta City Council while also keeping an eye on the city’s diverse neighborhoods.
Ariel Hart is a reporter on health care issues. She works on the AJC’s health team and has reported on subjects including the Voting Rights Act and transportation.
