Looks like the dirt work they have been doing is much larger than just a parking lot.

Newsok just broke this:
http://newsok.com/mercy-plans-to-build-new-hospital-in-okc/article/5556911

Construction on a new six-story Mercy Hospital is expected to begin next week beside the Oklahoma Heart Hospital South in Oklahoma City.

The new hospital will be around 228,000 square-feet with an estimated cost of more than $150 million. It will include 72 patient beds.

The current emergency room will be expanded shortly after construction begins in 2018. The emergency room will service the entire campus and remain operational during construction.

The new hospital also will include space for an intensive care unit and pharmacy.

Construction will also include a helipad, parking garage and lot on the grounds. There will be several hundred parking spaces added to the parking garage and lot.

Courtney Landsberger, spokeswoman for Mercy, said construction for the helipad should be completed by 2020.

The ground breaking ceremony on the new full-service hospital will occur at 2 p.m. on June 26. The new hospital will provide service to the growing population in the south side of Oklahoma City, Landsberger said.

The hospital will be on the west side of the current Oklahoma Heart Hospital at 5200 E Interstate 240 Service Road. A proposed traffic signal is planned on Sooner Road directly south of the Phillips 66 gas station.

Mercy and the Oklahoma Heart Hospital created Super West Building LLC., to fund the project and changes to nearby Sooner Road. The architects on the project are WHR Architects and the contractor will be McCarthy Architecture.

Currently there are 349 beds in the Mercy Hospital on Memorial Road in north west Oklahoma City with 281 physicians.

The new building will be built to allow for future expansion, Landsberger said.

I've been exchanging emails with one of the Ward 4 staff over the last several months as we discuss issues with the lights on either side of 240 and Sooner. Well, the Heart Hospital just made things worse. You can review the traffic commission's notes from their meeting at https://agenda.okc.gov/sirepub/meeting.aspx?cabinet=published_meetings&docid=110865

So originally, the hospital wanted to put a new light in (with turn lanes) just south of Popeye's/McDonald's. It would have been a weird flow in their lot and for the other businesses there. ODOT rejected this request. The hospital decided to then pursue putting a light on the north side of these same businesses at the current entrance/exit space where the little road north of Valero is. Leave it to the city to blanket approve it though.

So now we'll have a pair of lights on either side of 240 that STILL aren't linked and still do stupid things daily, and we'll throw in a third light to make it even worse. I'd compare it to the McArthur Blvd/SW 3rd intersections. No coordination between the lights and completely stupid use of timing and no cameras so you sit forever with zero cars in other directions or you get crammed in during busy times and it takes 15 minutes to go 1000 feet.

I'm told the Heart Hospital is supposed to pay for all expenses related to the project and that includes linking to the lights at 240. We'll see. If it was that easy, why didnt the city do this over the last 15 years when the citizens have been complaining forever about a full mile of backups every day during rush hour?

Im both extremely disappointed in there being a light, and cautiously optimistic that forcing the hospital to pay for it may actually finally get us the technology we've long needed at this intersection.

This issue is starting to pop up more and more and I absolutely hate it! I don't know why the hell we have to have so many lights so close to an intersection.

its because the commission doesn't think ahead. They allow developers to put outlets too close to intersections and then complain later about traffic instead of putting forward thinking in to the project to direct traffic in the right place.

For this case, the city allowed a frontage road to not exist for the last 500 feet and caused it to only exist as parking lot at the hospital. They allowed the hospital to build so far forward that it's not practical to put in a frontage now. This entire situation could have been corrected at the original construction a couple of years ago by putting in a frontage and forcing the hospital traffic to that. The off-ramp would have flowed into that frontage like it does everywhere else, and we would be using the existing lights. But did we do that? Nope.

Westgate is really the same thing on both ends. Put an outlet between an interstate and major intersection lights. Surely that wont cause issues? HAHAHAH.

Westgate is really the same thing on both ends. Put an outlet between an interstate and major intersection lights. Surely that wont cause issues? HAHAHAH.

The same thing is the case with the service road on the south side of I-40 between MacArthur and Meridian. It's solid proof that some people just don't think ahead well.

I'm going to love coming out of Sunny Pointe along the "service road" and coming upon this cramped intersection. Can't wait.

Well if youre in Sunny Point, then just go out Sunnylane and say screws to Sooner. Depending on where you are in the neighborhood, it might look like more distance, but i bet it saves you time. A lot of people use Sunnylane to go north instead because of the lower traffic volume. Even people in Windwood on Sooner, will go through their neighborhood to exit to Sunnylane just to avoid Sooner's crazy.