Peak Vista to buy former Penrose Community Hospital

Peak Vista Community Health Centers has agreed to buy the former Penrose Community Hospital at 3205 N. Academy Blvd. from Penrose-St. Francis Health Services.

 “The addition of this new property allows us a wonderful opportunity to serve more people for primary outpatient care in the Pikes Peak Region,” Peak Vista president and CEO Pam McManus said in a statement. “We are extremely thankful for our partnership with Penrose-St. Francis as our missions align to provide exceptional care for people facing access barriers in our community.”

Penrose-St. Francis closed the facility in 2008 when it opened St. Francis Medical Center at Woodmen Road and Powers Boulevard, although it kept an urgent care center and some physician offices and outpatient services at the location, which will remain under Peak Vista's ownership.

Randy Hylton, Peak Vista's director of communications and outreach, said Peak Vista plans to remodel the 225,000-square-foot building and use it to expand its primary care services, rather than replacing any of its 19 existing health centers.

"It is a large facility," he said. "There's a lot of opportunity for us to grow and expand and potentially offer new services as we go forward."

Penrose Community Hospital offers Peak Vista a central location close to neighborhoods where it doesn't currently have providers, Hylton said.

"It is very well positioned," he said. "The idea is very exciting for us to reach into another neighborhood or region of the Pikes Peak area."

Hylton said the sale has not closed yet and a sale price has not been announced, although Penrose-St. Francis will take $1.5 million off the building's value.

"We hope to get in there immediately and begin to retrofit the facility and begin to create space for patient care," Hylton said.

The 108-bed hospital was built in 1975 as Colorado Springs Community Hospital and purchased by Penrose-St. Francis in 1978. Penrose Community has been for sale since 2008, Penrose-St. Francis spokesman Chris Valentine said.

"A hospital building needs a very specific buyer," he said.

Peak Vista serves 65,000 people in El Paso and Teller County, most uninsured or underinsured.