Mayo Clinic has a host of plans to expand its Rochester campuses in the next five years, and the city's Planning and Zoning Commission on Wednesday put its support behind those plans.
Mayo Clinic representatives at a Wednesday commission meeting presented the clinic's 2017-2021 five-year plan , a regular update on its planned activities in Rochester. The clinic is required by Rochester city ordinances to update plans every five years for its campuses in special zoning districts.
The city has two special zoning districts for Mayo campuses: the Medical Institutional Campus Special District is an overlay district in the downtown area and along the Second Street Southwest corridor to the St. Marys area; and the Mayo Support Campus Special District on the east side of West Circle Drive north of 41st Street Northwest.
The five-year plan aids the city in its infrastructure growth and planning efforts, according to Jeff Ellerbusch, a Rochester-Olmsted Planning Department senior planner, in a memo to the planning commission.
After a review of the plan, the planning commission voted to give its recommendation for acceptance of the plan to the Rochester City Council. The council will review the plan at a future meeting.
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The most critical information in the five-year plan is Mayo's list of all potential development projects the clinic, through the Mayo Foundation, may undertake in the next five years, Ellerbusch said in a memo to the commission.
The report categorizes potential projects as "medical," "parking" and "support" projects and lists the potential projects according to the central medical sub-district, the west medical sub-district and the support center sub-district.
There are 60 projects in total listed between the three sub-districts, including renovations and expansions of current facilities and new construction. More than half of those projects are located in the central medical sub-district in downtown Rochester. Another 21 projects are listed in the report but fall outside of the three sub-districts.
Projects of note include a "phase three" vertical expansion of the Gonda Building; a major expansion of clinical laboratory, research and education space south of the Hilton and Guggenheim buildings; and continued renovation of all Saint Marys Campus buildings.
The five-year plan also includes information on Mayo Clinic's property ownership and acreage and its employee distribution.
The clinic, as of Jan. 1 owned 155.5 acres inside the special districts, according to the report. That acreage does not reflect Mayo Clinic's Sept. 1 purchase of the 41st Street Professional Office Building Campus, formerly the IBM White Buildings , the report noted.
At year-end 2015, Mayo Clinic and Mayo Foundation employed 34,562 people in total, the report stated. Of those employees, 18,440 were located in the central sub-district, and another 9,364 were in the west sub-district.
Mayo Clinic has been required to file five-year plans for the special zoning districts since the establishment of the original district in 1991 and the support district in 2006. The plan will be reviewed by the Rochester City Council at its Dec. 19 meeting.
