Clinic asks for I-90 interchange
Hospital wants to build outpatient facility in Avon
By Kevin Kelley
Westshore
Published Aug. 15, 2007

The Cleveland Clinic says no decision has been made to close its Clemens Road facility in Westlake even though its executive director wrote that the institution has outgrown that building.

In an Aug. 10 letter to the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency (NOACA), Oliver C. Henkel Jr., executive director of government and community relations for the Cleveland Clinic, requests that an interchange for I-90 at Lear Nagle Road in Avon be approved.

The Clinic, Henkel wrote, has reached an agreement to acquire 40 acres of land near the interchange to build an outpatient facility of approximately 170,000 square feet. The facility could be made even bigger to include doctors’ offices and other medical facilities, he added.

Much of the land surrounding the proposed interchange is owned by The Richard E. Jacobs Group.

“The Clinic has outgrown its current medical facilities on Clemens Road in Westlake,” Henkel wrote. “Space capacity concerns required us to consider alternative locations.”

However, Clinic spokesperson Eileen Sheil told West Life that does not mean the Clemens Road building will shut down.

“We have not made the decision to close the Clemens Road facility,” she said.

Westlake Mayor Dennis Clough told West Life that Cleveland Clinic officials have assured him that the institution’s Columbia Road facility will remain open.

“They could not give me any clear definitive answer that they were going to keep the employees at the Clemens Road facility and not move them,” Clough said.

Henkel’s letter to NOACA says the Cleveland Clinic is committed to Westlake.

“Nearly 800 of our employees live in Westlake,” Henkel wrote. “More than 450 of our employees work within the city limits. Regardless of our expansion opportunity in Avon, we will maintain a significant presence in Westlake.”

Henkel wrote that the planned Avon facility is not intended to replace any Westlake location.

“We anticipate some of the Clemens Road employees will move to our Columbia Road Medical Campus in Westlake while other groups may remain at the current location,” he wrote.

Henkel also wrote that the Clinic and the city of Westlake attempted to find a location to build a new facility within Westlake but were unable to find a suitable location.

Clough said that the Clinic expressed interest in 12 acres at the southern end of Crocker Park that were zoned residential. A deed restriction that was created when voters approved Crocker Park would have had to be overturned for the Clinic to build on those 12 acres, he said. City Council members did not want to override the restriction, Clough said, and the Clinic did not want to ask voters to authorize the rezoning.

Clinic officials never formally submitted any plans for building at Crocker Park.

“They were on the (Planning Commission) agenda and then they withdrew it,” Clough said.

Clough told Westlake he has concerns about how the proposed interchange will affect traffic in his city.

“If (Avon doesn’t) have roads leading up to the interchange, more people will use Westlake’s roads to get to the interchange,” Clough said. “Our concern is if they don’t improve their ancillary roads, (the interchange) would have a further detrimental impact on us.”

In March, Bay Village City Council passed a resolution supporting the interchange after Avon Mayor Jim Smith questioned whether Bay Village was quietly interfering with the project. Bay Village Mayor Debbie Sutherland said she would like to see an additional study to determine how the interchange impacts her community, but also said she was not against the interchange.

“This resolution takes into account our concerns in the city about the regulation of traffic in Bay Village being our responsibility and how traffic affects our city, but at the same time expresses our support for the interchange project for I-90,” Sutherland said. “It’s quite specific in expressing our concerns but also our support for the project and getting it done.”