As Utah Valley Regional Medical Center expands outward, it takes tax-generating businesses away from Provo.
Now, Intermountain Health Care - the not-for-profit conglomerate that owns the hospital - has given permission to begin negotiations for the Granite Furniture property adjacent to the hospital campus.Because of its tax-exempt status, the hospital contributes little to city coffers. The medical center pays property tax only on its rental homes and generates sales tax on its cafeteria and snack bar.
"When they do expand, they take taxable property and turn it into nontaxable property," said Mayor Mike Hill. "If we lose Granite Furniture, I'll feel bad. That's a significant impact to the city."
Losing a tax-paying business the size of Granite Furniture to hospital expansion would take a bite out of Provo city's and Provo School District's tax revenue. The store paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in property tax and sales tax last year.
Provo has already lost one business to the growing hospital complex - Rick Warner Lincoln-Mercury, formerly at 1150 N. 500 West, moved to Orem earlier this year. The hospital bought 1.7 acres that included an 11,000-square-feet building from Rick Warner and now uses it for storing records and building grounds maintenance and construction equipment.
Hill doesn't want to lose another.
"They've been a good neighbor and we would like to keep them in Provo," he said. "Every retail business is important, but Granite Furniture has been here forever."
Should Granite Furniture move to Orem, it would set up a shop almost directly across 1300 South from R.C. Willey. Granite has an option to build a 87,500-square-feet building on Dick Burr's property at 1300 South Main in Orem.
Hospital administrators will not say how they plan to use the property if they buy it, but they do say they have plenty of uses for it. The property is two acres with an 80,000-square-foot building.
"We're bursting at the seams in every department, the property could be used for anything," said Ron Jones, hospital assistant administrator. But expansion plans at the hospital are currently on hold, awaiting direction from Hillary Rodham Clinton's task force as to which direction health care is going.