As motorists headed up and down Interstate 20 over the past two years, they might have thought the massive construction on a hillside overlooking the busy highway is an overnight success story. After all, what they see has gone up relatively quickly.
But it’s what they don’t see that tells the story of a long road to get to where St. Vincent’s St. Clair is today. The new state-of-the-art hospital, set to open Dec. 10, is far from a recent development, local officials will quickly tell you. This has been a vision decades in the making.
It has spanned multiple mayoral terms in Pell City and on the St. Clair County Commission. The talk of a new hospital dates back to the St. Clair Regional Hospital Board and later, the county’s Health Care Authority. And it has gone through a series of health systems before finding just the right fit with Ascension Health and St. Vincent’s Health System.
But the vision seemed to really start taking shape around 2003 when officials acquired land just north of the interstate. The first to locate there was Jefferson State Community College.
The obvious next choice for the adjoining campus was a new hospital.
Guin Robinson, who was mayor at the time and had previously served on the St. Clair County Hospital Board, recalled the needs. “Our hospital was an aging building. It was cost prohibitive to expand or update. There were no private rooms or baths.
“We knew that if we were going to be the county we envisioned us to be, something had to happen,” Robinson said. “We couldn’t have written a script any better for what transpired.”
Anywhere along the way, the dreams of a new hospital coming to fruition could have fallen apart. But they didn’t because when one area of the vision would falter, a partner stepped up to make sure the whole vision was realized.
“It took all entities,” Robinson said. And now, the Health Care Authority, St. Clair County Commission, City of Pell City, St. Clair Economic Development Council and Ascension Health, St. Vincent’s parent company, are solid partners in a vision that has the power to change the face of the region.
“Had one of the parties not stepped up, the entire project would have been in jeopardy,” said Pell City Mayor Bill Hereford, who served as chairman of the hospital board before becoming mayor. “Quality of health care is one of the top three or four issues of any community. This new hospital ensures the highest quality health care for the next generation.”
Hereford agreed the land acquisition was the tipping point. “It has been like dominos, only they aren’t falling down. They’re standing up.”
He cited breakthroughs like Jefferson State as a place to train nurses and the new hospital set to open. Behind it, a state veteran’s home is going up. A townhome development is under construction nearby. “It is a great day. The ripple effect has been tremendous.”
St. Clair Economic Development Executive Director Don Smith couldn’t agree more. “There are always identifiable moments that positively change a community’s future, and for St. Clair County, one of those moments took place when St. Vincent’s Health System took over management of our existing county hospital.
“Without their partnership, leadership and a strong commitment to premium health care, we would not have a new state-of-the-art hospital opening in Pell City. This new hospital is an economic developer’s dream project. It provides a quality health care service, creates new jobs, and helps our organization successfully recruit new employers to our county,” Smith said. When new manufacturers are looking for a new area to locate, they are always interested in the quality of that community’s health care, Smith explained. “They know that their employees’ health has a direct effect on their success. In addition, having this new hospital will directly create other opportunities like the Department of Veterans Affairs Colonel Robert L. Howard State Veterans Home across from the new hospital,” which will create 300 new jobs. “This project would not have come to St. Clair County without this new hospital being constructed.”
Smith credited the county commission for its foresight in moving the entire project forward. “The County Commission has recognized for quite some time that having a new hospital in our community would have an incredible effect on local economy for generations to come. We are very fortunate to have such proactive elected officials throughout our community.”
County Commission Chairman Stan Batemon, a driving force behind the project and a constant proponent over all these years, once called the 160-acre tract of land a “green field” that is now growing a community college, a hospital, a professional medical building, a veteran’s home and a residential development.
“I’m looking at the new hospital and all the things with it as a small UAB-type development for St. Clair County,” Batemon said. “The hospital is driving the school, and it’s driving the Veteran’s Home and any other developments that will go out there. It’s our small education and health complex.”
What’s next? “It is definitely going to be the catalyst that moves the county and the region forward,” Batemon has said.
Lawrence Fields, who chairs the Health Care Authority and is a former mayor himself, called it “one of the best economic engines to come to St. Clair County in a long time.”
He pointed to the five-member partnership as the key to success, too. “It is outstanding that everyone worked together as well as they have.” In addition, “We have a great board, a good mixture from all over the county” who lent their support.
“I don’t think anything will surpass this,” Fields said. “It’s like what (St. Vincent’s CEO) John O’Neil says — ‘It’s one of the most modern, rural hospitals in America.’ I just have to pinch myself when I ride by.”
