Ochsner plans to expand to treat more patients, but neighbors say the project is changing the fabric of the neighborhood.
JEFFERSON PARISH, La. — Ochsner presented another public meeting Wednesday night to talk about the plans to do a major expansion of the Ochsner Hospital, main campus on Jefferson Highway.
Neighbors, and our camera, got a first look at renderings of what the new building will look like, and how the area around it will be transformed.
A children's hospital already exists within the Ochsner main campus on Jefferson Highway. So, why are they planning to add 340,000 square feet to create a dedicated space for young patients?
“We've had trouble. In the past year, there have been times where at least 25 percent, or 30 percent of the patients, that we get a call about, a transfer, we're unable to take care of those patients, because of capacity constraints,” explained Chief Medical Officer of Ochsner Children's Hospital, Pediatric Surgeon Dr. Butch Adolph.
The expansion will go on land already owned and vacant, next to Ochsner on the side upriver of the main campus tower.
In-patient, ER, ICU, and step-down bed capacity will all increase, as will space for high-risk pregnancies and sick newborns. Even though there are three other pediatric hospitals in the state, Ochsner says it is the only one in the state that performs complicated procedures, that bring in young patients from the region, country, and around the world.
“This will allow us to have a patient and family experience and a dedicated pediatric facility that we think we know will match the quality of care that we're providing,” Dr. Adolph added.
The hospital says it has taken the concerns from several neighborhood public forums and will address them.
“We're actually going to improve drainage through this project with more retention on site," said Emily Arata, the System Vice-President of Community Affairs at Ochsner. "We'll be able to retain over 400,000 gallons of water on the site underground during a storm event, and that's about a foot of water across an entire football field,” she said.
There will be a new pocket park, and plan to replace old-growth trees with new substantial ones.
“We know that hospitals are 24-7. We've got a lot of patients. We've got a lot of employees," Arata said.
"We've got ambulances. We know this, so we make every effort to be good neighbors and have plans in place to mitigate that impact,” Arata added.
Here’s the timeline: Go before the Planning Advisory Board in September, the Jefferson Parish Council in October for approval, ground break at the beginning of 2025, and start seeing patients in 2027.
That's the perspective from Ochsner. Now learn more about how the expansion will impact the neighborhood and parish side.
Ochsner Neighborhood and Parish Perspective | More from Rachel Handley
“I don’t know what concessions would make this pill go down easier,” said Ochsner neighbor Debbie Wright Brayden, “because it basically is dramatically and irrevocably changing the fabric of this neighborhood.”
It is a common feeling in the area around Ochsner’s Jefferson Highway campus, where promises of parks and trees have done little to ease resentment toward the hospital system. Since it announced its plans to expand, neighbors have pleaded with parish leaders to stop it.
Many say the campus has already changed their once-quiet neighborhood for the worse. They describe light pollution, noise, and constant traffic in the area around River Road and worry an expansion will make it worse.
An even bigger fear, though, is that Ochsner will absorb the very houses they live in. The current plan for the children’s hospital will demolish a strip of houses between Deckbar and Betz Avenues which Ochsner has steadily bought up and vacated.
Wright Brayden serves as Vice President of the Old Jefferson Community Association which advocates for the area encompassing those houses. “A lot of these homes were built right before WWII and after WWII, my house was built right after the war ended by the veteran who returned home,” she said.
OJCA is one of several groups planning to attend Wednesday night’s meeting. Deano Bonano, Jefferson Parish District 2 Councilman, plans to present new compromises he has reached with Ochsner. Chief among them is an agreement by the hospital system not to buy any more houses in the neighborhood.
“I would expect that to be indefinitely,” said Bonano, “I can't say what's gonna happen 50 years from now, but we're gonna get that in writing from them.”
Bonano said Ochsner has also agreed to build a small park at the corner of Deckbar Avenue and River Road and a corridor between the neighborhood and the levee. He said it will also scrap plans for a hotel along River Road and agree to let the Parish rezone an area that is currently zoned for hospital use.
“We need to get as many concessions out of this as possible because these other areas are already zoned for hospital, they would not have to come to me first, and that's what people need to understand,” said Bonano.
Still, neighbors believe there is no way to replace what the neighborhood would lose if the plan moves forward. “What they’re really not addressing is personal impact to the neighborhood,” said Wright Brayden. “This is systematically unraveling the fabric of a very vibrant neighborhood.”
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