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Northern Arizona Healthcare plans new hospital and expanded “wellness village”

 Woman asking her doctor questions
Heather Hazzan
/
SELF x American Academy of Pediatrics Vaccine Photo Project
Woman asking her doctor questions

Northern Arizona Healthcare plans to build a “health and wellness village” in Flagstaff. KNAU’s Melissa Sevigny reports, the proposed facilities include a new hospital with expanded capacity to serve patients from Flagstaff, the Navajo Nation, and rural areas of Northern Arizona.

NAH acquired 188 acres of land near Fort Tuthill County Park for the expansion. The first phase is the new hospital and adjacent offices and clinics for outpatient care. That’s expected to cost 800 million dollars and will be completed in 2027.

The expansion plan also includes healthcare-focused retail and restaurants, housing, and a hotel, says NAH spokesperson Steve Eiss. "We have quite a bit of our patients who come from, sometimes, hours away," Eiss says. "We serve a 50,000-sqaure-mile radius of Northern Arizona, being the only Level 1 Trauma facility north of Phoenix."

Twenty-two acres will be set aside as a nature reserve and linked to Flagstaff’s existing urban trail system. A Native American advisory council will help shape the plans in a way that respects cultural beliefs.

"We are trying to be as far reaching as possible with what we think healthcare is going to look like in the future, with what we think the growth of the region of Northern Arizona is going to be… and really trying to look out in the future and build something that can grow with the community," Eiss says.

NAH currently serves 700,000 people in the region.

The City of Flagstaff’s planning department is reviewing the proposal.

Melissa joined KNAU's team in 2015 to report on science, health, and the environment. Her work has appeared nationally on NPR and been featured on Science Friday. She grew up in Tucson, Arizona, where she fell in love with the ecology and geology of the Sonoran desert.