Montgomery County is giving Holy Cross Hospital’s efforts to expand into Germantown an extra push through the county’s bureaucracy in the hopes that it will create thousands of jobs. County Executive Ike Leggett signed an executive order designating the $202 million project a “strategic economic development project.” The designation — established by an executive order in August — directs all county departments and agencies to prioritize the project and expedite approval processes.
Strategic economic development projects are chosen based on expectations that they will create or keep jobs in the county and use mostly private financing, according to a statement from Leggett’s office.
Expected to break ground by the end of the year and open in mid-2014, the new hospital and medical office building on Montgomery College’s Germantown campus should create 1,500 permanent jobs and 1,100 construction jobs, said Eileen Cahill, the hospital’s vice president of government and community relations.
The 80,000 square-foot, 93-bed hospital also will be the anchor of the new Montgomery College life sciences park, which is expected to generate up to 5,700 jobs, Cahill said.
Leggett said the quantity of new jobs was a large factor in the decision to give the project an added boost.
“I could think of no other project that we are seeking individually that will create this many jobs,” he said.
Cahill said the executive order will help the hospital through its next required approval — site plan approval from the Montgomery County Planning Board, which will be determined after an Oct. 20 hearing.
But Planning Board spokeswoman Valerie Burton said the project’s new designation doesn’t factor into the board’s decision process.
“The executive order doesn’t change how we do our review of the site plan,” she said. “We still review the application on its merits.”
And the project — which requires additional approvals from the planning board, such as to amend Montgomery College’s Germantown campus forest conservation plan — sped through the board’s schedule before the executive order was signed, so timing will not be affected either, Burton said.
Leggett said he doesn’t know what the next strategic economic development project will be.
Department of Economic Development Director Steven Silverman did not answer requests for comment.
