CARLTON FLETCHER: Attempt to stop Phoebe/Albany Tech project beyond ridiculous

“School’s out forever.”

— Alice Cooper

A lot of it has to do — as he’ll readily tell you — with the perception of former Phoebe Putney Health System President Joel Wernick. When hired, Wernick was tasked with taking the hospital system in a dynamic new direction, and he did that to the chagrin of many in the community.

Wernick, you see, was a tough cookie when it came to the hospital system; he ran it like a business.

There are, as anyone who has lived here long enough will tell you, other personal issues involved — some well-known, others not so much — but the love-hate relationship many in this community have with the hospital system is actually quite confounding. There are those whose lives were saved by physicians at the facility, and they still curse Phoebe anytime it’s mentioned in conversation.

And so, it’s become a “thing” for many people to “hate” Phoebe, despite its impact on the economy and the health care of southwest Georgia.

Which is, if you think about it, ridiculous.

Phoebe CEO/President Scott Steiner, who has more than ably filled the big shoes left empty when Wernick retired, came with foreknowledge of the enmity many have developed with the hospital system, but he’s now getting a first-hand taste of the depths to which some would sink to sabotage the health care facility’s moving forward.

A story on Page 1A details the visionary concept Phoebe officials and late Albany Technical College President Anthony Parker developed to address the nationwide nursing shortage that has hit southwest Georgia just as it has every other health care facility in the nation. A side product of the “Living & Learning Community” planned at the former Albany High School building purchased by Phoebe long ago and now in disrepair would bring hundreds of nursing students to Phoebe, creating an economic development project that would have a huge positive impact on the neighborhood surrounding Phoebe and Albany’s downtown.

Led by member Bruce Capps, though, members of the Albany Historical Preservation Commission — and, reportedly, others in the city hierarchy — are pushing against the project, trying — and perhaps on the verge of succeeding — to force Phoebe to alter it’s plan to repurpose the building because it’s in the city’s Historic District. Capps, with no basis for making the statement, has said it would cost the same to restore the building as it would to repurpose it.

As a matter of fact, it would cost more. A whole lot more. Architects who helped design Phoebe’s planned facility say the difference is striking: in the millions.

Renovating the old Albany High/Albany Middle School building — and to what end, no one has explained other than the fact it is an old building — would leave Phoebe/ATC with 45,000 square feet of usable space. The repurposing project would provide 47,000 square feet of space for education, and 70,000 square feet of living space for 80 single apartments.

I’m sure there exists a certain level of sentimental attachment to the Albany High building, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But as the building has deteriorated into disuse, how does anyone even have an inkling that renovating this structure to look like it did many years ago serves any purpose? People love their old schools, sure, but demanding that a falling-apart building be restored in such a way that it costs its owner millions and millions of dollars to make it useful once again is well beyond the pale.

It doesn’t matter if you love Phoebe or hate it … or anyone or any incident related to the hospital. It is a crucial part of this community. Using petty differences or supposed influence to block a project that has the capacity to transform a large portion of Albany is more than inane, it’s the epitome of insanity. And if city officials allow this to happen, they are complicit in the insanity.