AVON — Cleveland Clinic wants to bring four stories of doctors’ offices and a two-story outpatient surgical center to Avon, along with 300 to 500 jobs.

City officials have been working with Cleveland Clinic for the last six months to map out an 181,000-square-foot facility east of Nagel Road, just north of where the new Interstate 90 interchange will be constructed, Avon Planning Coordinator Jim Piazza said.

“This is not a small place they want to build,” he said.

Piazza said the Clinic approached him six months ago about a 161,000-square-foot health center. The plans have expanded since then to build a health facility just a tad smaller than the Avon Wal-Mart on Chester Road.

And it’s very possible the size of the project — and the number of jobs it would bring to the county — could grow much larger before the final plans are set, he said.

Joe Ferenczy, of Cleveland architecture and engineering firm URS Corp., has submitted development drawings to the city showing the layout of the proposed 40.6-acre site.

The drawings show a 120,000-square-foot health facility and a 61,000-square-foot surgical center, surrounded by 900 parking spots. The site is laid out along Just Imagine Drive and would connect to Nagel Road through property owned by the Richard E. Jacobs Group.

Ferenczy’s firm, which represents both Cleveland Clinic and the Jacobs Group, is expected to make a presentation 7:30 p.m. next Wednesday to the Avon Planning Commission.

See a Yahoo map of the area.

Talks about the project started four years ago, but Mayor Jim Smith said the regional health care giant wanted confirmation that a new interchange would be built at Nagel Road and Interstate 90 before it would move into the neighborhood.

“This is one of the reasons we fought so hard for the interchange,” he said.

Smith said taxes from jobs at the hospital would help pay for the ramps to the highway, on which construction is expected to start next fall.

“Medical is such a paramount industry in Ohio,” Smith said. “In Lorain County and Ohio, we need to reinvent ourselves. The days of the auto and steel industries sustaining us are long gone.”

Medical jobs can’t really be outsource, and there is always demand for them, he said. While computer support jobs are being outsourced to India, and Ford and GM are fighting to keep plants open, medical jobs are stable, Smith said.

Piazza said the Cleveland Clinic project — if approved by the city — could act as a magnet for other new businesses.

The Jacobs Group owns another 60 acres of commercial land around the proposed site. Piazza said the company, which participated in a traffic study for the area near the future interchange, has made it clear that it wants to woo retailers, restaurants and hotels there over the next 30 years.

Smith said a groundbreaking for the Cleveland Clinic could come early next fall.

A media spokeswoman for the Cleveland Clinic declined to comment on the plans for Avon, saying only that her company is looking forward to next week’s presentation to the Planning Commission.

Contact Jason Hawk at 329-7148 or jhawk@chroniclet.com.

 

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