Hospice Firm Eyes Town Parcel on Woodfall Road

An Atlanta-based national developer of medical facilities has its eye on a one-and-a-half acre of town-owned land abutting the to build a single story hospice building off Woodfall Road, according to the town's

But the Georgia firm isn't the only development team interested in the land and it appears it will need to outbid others for the right to build its design.

Coming before the Board of Selectmen on Monday, June 18, Jay Szklut, the town's planning and economic development manager, said Integra Medicial Properties has approached the town with an interest in purchasing a small parcel of town land off Greenbrook Way and Woodfall Road to develop a single-story, residential-styled building to house a hospice care facility.

The building will be up to 16,000 square feet with 15 to 18 patient rooms, a common area, nurse's station, a small kitchen and some office space. Each patient room will have a small private patio. The developer does not expect much traffic generated by the site.

In the past nine months, the firm as created a company in Massachusetts named Boston Hospice Facility. On its website, Integra said it has a project in Boston under construction yet did not name the location.

The firm's website does show a similar-sized facility in the design stage.

Szklut said the land was put up for auction about four years ago but that sale was scuttled as the national economy "crashed" severely impacted bids for the site.

And while town needed to reexamine the parcel since it was created through a land swap with a private property owner, Szklut said the firm "remain[s] very interested in the parcel" and wants to examine and research the site as part of its due diligence prior to any purchase.

The parcel is zoned as four-buildable lots, said Glenn Clancy, director of the Office of Community Development. But he noted the reason it was created as a residential subdivision was "because it was easy to appraise the land that way."

"But now this process is wide open," said Clancy.

And that is to the town's advantage as other firms are now expressing their own interest in the land.

The Selectmen directed Szklut to have the land re-appraised by a third party, write up a request for proposal (which will lay out the minimum requirements for developers to meet) and allow all teams an opportunity to examine the site.