The prime Interstate 74 property – once promoted for technology businesses in Bettendorf – will likely become the home to a new 92-bed psychiatric hospital.
Strategic Health LLC is asking the Bettendorf Board of Adjustment for two parking setback variances which would pave the way for construction of the facility north of Tanglefoot Lane and east of Interstate 74. The requests are scheduled to go before the board at its Thursday (9/14) meeting.
The site is in the process of being rezoned from C-6 (office research park district) to C-3 (general business). The rezoning was approved by the city's planning and zoning commission in August and a public hearing on the change will be held at the Sept. 19 city council meeting.
Strategic Health spent more than a year seeking to obtain a certificate-of-need from the Iowa Health Facilities Council. The council finally approved the certificate at its July meeting in Des Moines.
Both local hospital systems, UnityPoint Health (Trinity) and Genesis Health, had opposed issuance of the certificate claiming local providers could meet the mental health needs of the community without the project.
Strategic Behavior Health is based in Memphis, TN, and has 10 hospitals in six states: New Mexico, Nevada, North Carolina, Texas, Wisconsin and Colorado.
The I-74 Technology Park was once promoted as the site for a plant to manufacture LED lights. A Florida developer promised city officials he would bring 300 jobs from China to make the LED lights and the city agreed to provide tax increment financing (TIF) incentives for the project. The plant never materialized.
The technology park property was later sold to another developer who has since built a series of office/warehouses on the eastern portion of the parcel.
