Greater Regional supports new hotel survey

Greater Regional Health board Monday approved contributing $18,000 to help fund a study for the feasibility of an additional hotel in Creston.

Chief Executive Officer Monte Neitzel explained it’s simple supply and demand.

“We have an amount of patients that require lodging. We have a fair amount of medical staff that needs lodging. Amy Rieck (human resources officer) does a lot of work to look for potential housing for people who come to interview. There is an need within the community and we wanted to to validate that. We will be major players in bringing in an additional hotel to the Creston community.”

Neitzel said Greater Regional Health will follow all legalities being involved in the study.

Although no specifics for the hotel were discussed, Neitzel said it may have 50 rooms. Having a conference room that holds up to 100 has also been discussed. Neitzel said the conference room is not desired by developers. Potential locations were not known.

“We are in the process of doing a study; all in compliance. We will share with potential community partners,” Neitzel said.

Although she was not at the Greater Regional meeting, Union County Development Association director Mindy Stalker said afterward, the survey should be complete early next year.

In other board news...

Neitzel said the plan for former Crossroads building will be administration, human resources, public relations and maybe additional offices. East Medical Suites building will be for patient care in the future.

The board approved $31,500 to transition the facility’s televisions to DIRECTV service from Mediacom. The monthly service will be $895. There are 95 televisions. The change was because of some operational decisions by Mediacom to prevent theft of services.