Effingham County commissioners have decided to work with Effingham Hospital on the future use of land at the intersections of Highways 119 and 21.

The hospital’s board of trustees wants a 3.6 acre tract at the intersection and adjacent to the hospital in order to put up more doctors’ offices. The commissioners, however, are pondering just what to do with the land.

“I suggest you look down the road, 20 to 50 years, and what vision do you have for the intersection. If that is not your vision,” assistant county attorney Eric Gotwalt said to commissioners about the doctors’ offices, “then talk with the hospital authority about another piece of land. That is a unique piece of property. We need to get that answer to what we want to do there.”

Commissioners voted 3-2 to go forward in exploring the plans for the tract the hospital wants. In a meeting last week with commissioners Reggie Loper and Verna Phillips, hospital authority members laid out their intent to build offices, perhaps condo-style, on the land.

“The doctors would have an interest in and own their own buildings,” Loper said, “which I thought was a pretty good idea.”

Loper said he and Phillips asked if the offices would cost the county any money, “and they said absolutely not.”

“When I left the meeting, I felt they were doing what needed to be done to meet the needs of the community,” Phillips said.

But Commissioner Hubert Sapp, who along with Jeff Utley voted against the motion to further discuss the land, had serious concerns about the hospital.

“They have been trying to grow it for a number of years and have not been successful in doing it,” he said. “The facility itself is not up to standard. Doctors that were using it no longer use it. They refuse to go.”

Sapp also said that those admitted with serious conditions to the hospital are stabilized and sent to Savannah hospitals for more treatment.

“I feel that hospital needs to be given to Memorial or St. Joseph’s and Candler and (for them) to operate a hospital at that facility,” he said.

Phillips worried what might happen to the Effingham Hospital if one of the two Savannah hospital groups opened a facility in Chatham County’s Westside.

“We’re looking at millions of dollars and a lot of jobs if a hospital locates in Pooler,” she said. “There is nothing more important for an area than a good, viable health care facility. We owe them our position on whether we are going to go forward on that property.”

County Administrator David Crawley posited if the commissioners intended to use that 3.6 acres for anything. He said their options, if they chose to work with the hospital, included selling, donating or leasing the land to the hospital. Crawley said he wasn’t sure if the condo office concept would work.

“We don’t know if we are talking about a one-story or a multi-story building,” he said. “We haven’t seen any plan.”

Commission Chairperson Myra Lewis said she didn’t want the hospital authority to get the wrong message.

“It appears this board has mixed emotions at this time,” she said. “We don’t want to send the wrong vibe to the hospital. We certainly want to work with them, but we don’t want to give them false hopes. I know we have to be mindful of the taxpayers of the entire county.”