I moved to Marceline at the end of 2021. Within a couple of months of being here, someone asked if I would help to try and get a Veteran housing development to take over the “New/Old Hospital” (Saint Francis Hospital on Hayden.) I was had just picked up where I left off years earlier on trying to get Amtrak to stop at Marceline again, so I pushed back on the Veteran housing. But since then, I’ve done a fair amount of research, reading, asking questions, taking photos, and thinking about how/what to do with the New/Old Hospital.
Many people have had many ideas on how to save or use the building. The City signed a contract with a real estate agent to list the commercial property and work to get it sold. There were a few serious inquiries that went all the way to closed session meeting with City Hall, but ultimately the interested parties didn’t move forward for various reasons. (Some may have been lack of insurance options, others for lack of investment, etc.)
The City spends an estimated $60,000 each year to maintain the grounds (minimal landscaping,) and basic building maintenance (repairing roof leaks, etc.) The City accepted ownership of the property in 2002. Round down to just $35,000/yr in maintenance costs (to account for inflation from 2002 to 2025) means the City has already spent around $805,000. There were a few years when the City rented space in the building for private business operations, but it’s unlikely the generated enough revenue to offset the cost of maintenance by very much.
The hospital was built in 1963, so it’s not a ‘historic building’, but it was built to last. It’s steel-frame and approximately 71,500 square feet. (FOR SALE: St. Francis Hospital) The design of the hospital rooms are from the 1950s and ’60s, so the existing rooms and spaces would not meet current residential code. That means the vast majority of the building would need to be completed gutted to build suitable rooms for long-term housing of Veterans, or anyone.
Tearing down the building to make way for new houses (or duplexes, or apartments) makes the most sense, as the lot already has significant utilities running to the last, and there are houses on all 4 sides of the property, so access to sewer, water, power, and gas are very close by. Plus, the amount of steel, copper and aluminium that could be salvaged by a reclamation company could be between $140,000-$250,000 – which could help cover the cost of demolition. (Demolition costs guesstimated at ~$650,000.)
The lot size is about 5.5 Acres / ~239,000 sq. ft. (1 Acre = ~43,560 sq. ft.) Marceline’s requirement for building 1 house is 7,500 sq. ft. (generally about 3 lots,) but taking into account roads, setbacks, and alleys, each house would use about 131,450 sq. ft. So, if the New/Old Hospital was torn down, approximately 10 houses could be built on the lot. (That’s without doing an actual scale map – just some math.)
The last housing development in Marceline was the “Ridgecrest” addition, built around 1975, and added 28 more houses when it was completed. Adding just 10 more homes (or some duplex apartments,) would be a great start to adding available living space for workers and families.
Ridgecrest development – Google maps
New/Old Hospital – Google maps
