Lydia Fallon, 5, had just one question for Mary Washington Healthcare during Wednesday’s public hearing on the hospital system’s recent expansion plans.
“What about all the noise and dust at naptime?” she asked members of the Planning Commission. “Tell [MWHC] to wait. Thank you for hearing me.”
Lydia attends Kids’ Station, the KinderCare-operated daycare center and preschool on the hospital’s main campus, which is scheduled for demolition to make way for a two-story medical clinic.
The hospital system also wants to construct a conference and training center and double the size of Snowden House and convert the structure back to residential use, according to the general development plan, which was subject to Wednesday’s public hearing before the Fredericksburg Planning Commission.
MWHC is proposing three phases of construction meant to allow Kids’ Station to continue operating through December of 2025, said Summer Hughes, the hospital system’s chief of staff, on Wednesday—though she said the phasing plans “haven’t been discussed” with KinderCare.
In Phase 1, which would start in August, half of the Kids’ Station playground would be removed, and the rest would be removed during Phase 2, which would start in September of 2025.
Construction of the conference and training center, the 6,000-square-foot addition to Snowden House, new parking lots, and a new entrance to the complex would be on-going throughout these two phases.
Lydia’s comment, and those of her mother Hannah Fallon and nine others who wrote letters to the Planning Commission in advance of Wednesday’s meeting, focused on the disruption and safety concerns the construction will pose to the children and staff who spend their day at Kids’ Station—and the fact that the childcare center is a valuable community benefit.
“Children require outdoor space to play and learn. That is simply fact,” wrote Nathan and Meredith Veldhuis. “Removing their outside playgrounds and play spaces, forcing them to remain indoors 4 days a week, 8+ hours at a time is unconscionable.”
Tegan Snigier, the parent of two children who attend Kids’ Station, said MWHC’s plans “[tell] the community that you do not value its working parents or the future of the community (i.e. its children).”
Citizens are also upset by the fact that the new general development plan submitted by MWHC does not include a childcare center. “Childcare” is one of the uses proffered by the hospital system in its rezoning request, but Hughes admitted Wednesday that childcare “is not a planned use.”
Commenters asked the Planning Commission to delay recommending approval of the expansion plans until Kids’ Station has been relocated and is fully open and operational.
Hughes said “a decision was made” in 2021, when the hospital system turned over operation of Kids’ Station to KinderCare.
“We gave them time to relocate so we could repurpose [the site] for the medical uses of the hospital system,” she said.
Planning Commission Chair David Durham asked Hughes if the hospital system had looked at other locations for the new medical clinic that would not necessitate demolishing Kids’ Station, and Hughes said she did not know.
Hughes said the expansion plans are key to the hospital system’s plans to establish a graduate medical residency program. She said the new conference and training center will be primarily used to provide educational opportunities for the residents, and that the new buildings need to be in walking distance to the rest of the campus for their benefit.
Commissioners also questioned the hospital system’s plans to expand Snowden House and convert its use to “residential.”
Eric Fletcher, MWHC’s senior vice president and chief strategy officer, told the Advance earlier this year that there are, “There are no plans for the use of the residential space in the house.”
But Kelly Machen, the city’s zoning administrator, said on Wednesday that staff’s understanding of the request is that Snowden House is being proposed for “full-time residential use” and Hughes said “the intent” is that it will be used as a residence.
“Who will live there has not yet been decided,” she said.
Commissioner Kenneth Gantt asked Hughes whether the hospital has held any community engagement events or made an attempt to gather stakeholder input into its plans.
Hughes said she was “not aware of any of those conversations.”
Commissioners said they want to hear more about the plans from other members of MWHC’s leadership and that they’d like representatives from KinderCare to be part of the conversation as well.
Chuck Johnston, director of community planning and building, explained to Hughes that there “appears to be some hesitancy” on the part of Commissioners to recommend approval of MWHC’s plans.
He and Durham said the public hearing could be continued to the next meeting to give the hospital system time to respond to the concerns expressed Wednesday, to which Hughes agreed.
