Integris begins construction
Edmond: $90M hospital project called sign of confidence in community
Comments 0BY JIM STAFFORD
Published: October 23, 2008
Integris Health celebrated the start of construction Wednesday on a $90 million Edmond hospital along Interstate 35 that is expected to spark a wave of economic development across the area.

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Edmond Mayor Dan O’Neil, one of the speakers at a ceremony at Henderson Hills Baptist Church, predicted that more than 200,000 square feet of office space will be built in the surrounding area.

"And that’s just phase one,” O’Neil said. "There are always meetings involving doctors, so that would cause more requirements for places to meet such as offices.”

Plus, there will be hotels and other businesses built to support the hospital in an area of Edmond exploding with growth.

"You can look at a hospital as being a creator of what I call primary jobs,” said Ken Moore, president and chief executive of the Edmond Area Chamber of Commerce. "Having good primary jobs provides more income for the service sector jobs that are created as the result of the primary jobs.”


How big an impact?
To appreciate the potential economic impact that the Integris Health Edmond hospital will have on the I-35 corridor in Edmond, consider the city of Yukon, said Stan Hupfeld, Integris Health chief executive.
Integris opened the Integris Canadian Valley Medical Center in Yukon in 2001, and it has become a magnet for economic development in that Canadian County community, Hupfeld said.

"If you look at a picture of the surrounding area before we built that hospital and you go look at it today, it is unbelievable the development that has happened,” Hupfeld said. "It’s just spectacular.”


An ‘economic engine’
Similar development is anticipated once the 40-bed Integris Health hospital is completed in 2010.
"Clearly hospitals are an economic engine,” Hupfeld said.

"It’s an economic engine because it’s a sign of confidence that someone has in this economy and community, and it brings, obviously, a payroll that is highly educated. There is something magical about it. I think the same thing is going to happen here.”