With the Carson-Tahoe Hospital closing in on a move north, city officials are looking to lay claim to one building the hospital is planning to vacate.
City supervisors will vote on Thursday whether to make a $4.5 million offer on the hospital's rehabilitation center, which would house municipal health and welfare offices along with a nonprofit counseling center getting ousted from its current space by a new sheriff's building.
The 26,000-square-foot building on Long Street would house several city departments, the Carson City Community Counseling Center and possibly other nonprofit groups. The city estimates the facility could bring in about $75,000 per year in rent.
The first tenant, the counseling center, resides rent-free in a city-owned building near the sheriff's office on Musser Street. The place will soon be torn down to make room for a new, $12 million sheriff's administration building, slated for construction next year. The city views the counseling center, which offers alcohol and drug abuse counseling and rehabilitation, as a vital public service.
The setup of the space being sought by the city, as a rehabilitation unit with hospital-like rooms, would take little modification to house the counseling center and its detox unit.
If all goes as planned, Carson City Development Services Director Andy Burnham said the counseling center could start moving into the rehab building some time in January or February.
The Board of Supervisors signed off on new debt for the purchase this month.
Hospital official Cheri Glockner said C-TH patients are scheduled to move from the hospital to the new Carson Tahoe Regional Medical Center on Dec. 3, and the rehab center will be moved to the east end of the medical center's third-floor fairly soon after.
"It will definitely be before the end of the year," she said.
The hospital's move also frees up adjacent city land that had been reserved for possible expansion. The city dedicated the lot in May for the expansion of a senior citizen affordable-housing project currently under construction between Long Street and Beverly Drive.
The first phase of the Autumn Village apartment complex, which is slated to be open this winter, includes 47 units for seniors who have an income between 30 percent and 50 percent of the median. A second phase will likely accept seniors with an income between 30 percent and 60 percent of the median.
n Contact reporter Cory McConnell at cmcconnell@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1217.
Voice your opinion
WHAT: Carson City Board of Supervisors meeting
WHEN: 8:30 a.m. Thursday
WHERE: Sierra Room of the Community Center, 851 E. William St.
