‘It’s a win for everyone.’ Easter Seals has contract to buy former Shriners property
A nonprofit that provides services to adults and children with special needs has a contract to purchase the former Shriners Hospital property on Richmond Road.
Easter Seals has been looking for additional space since it sold Cardinal Hill Rehabilitation Hospital, which Easter Seals founded, in 2015.
Easter Seals still occupies one building on the Cardinal Hill property but needs more space and is also looking to expand its services, said Jenny Wurzback, executive director of Easter Seals.
Wurzback said Easter Seals is still evaluating what programs will go into the former Shriners Hospital building, a fixture in Lexington since 1955.
The property includes a 117,000-square-foot hospital on 28.34 acres. Easter Seals has an adult day care program, a variety of therapy programs, a child day care program and various adaptive recreation programs.
The group filed a development plan with the city late Friday.
Easter Seals does not plan on making extensive changes to the exterior of the building.
“There are some minor tweaks,” Wurzback said. “We are not building onto the building or anything like that. We want to preserve the beauty of the spot.”
Wurzback said Easter Seals will also still allow the surrounding neighbors to use the hospital’s expansive front lawn for sledding in the winter and viewing fireworks on July 4.
“It would be great for us to serve more people,” Wurzback said. “That’s a building that should be preserved. It should be a good fit all the way around.”
Gregg Thornton, the board chairman of Easter Seals, said if the sale is finalized, it would allow an important Lexington property to be maintained.
“We believe our plan would preserve this iconic piece of property for the community. This would allow our organization to expand our existing programs and add additional programs continuing the long tradition of Easter Seals Cardinal Hill of providing services to people from Central and Eastern Kentucky,” said Thornton.
Lexington Fayette Urban County Councilman Bill Farmer Jr. said several different organizations looked at the property since Shriners Hospital vacated the Richmond Road campus for its new location near the University of Kentucky Medical Center in 2017.
But none were as good as fit as Easter Seals, which has a long history of helping kids and adults of varying abilities, he said.
“Children will continue to be served there just as they were served at Shriners,” Farmer said. “ It’s a win for the neighborhood. It’s a win for Lexington. It’s a win for everybody.”
If Easter Seals gets necessary sign offs from city planners, it will likely be more than a year before Easter Seals programs move into the Shriners Hospital property, Wurzabck said.
This story was originally published July 31, 2020 at 5:28 PM.
