By Debra Haight
J-E Correspondent
Recent action by the Berrien County Commissioners has made the future of the former Berrien General Hospital property even more uncertain. The hospital building on Dean’s Hill Road has been vacant since the Sacred Heart Rehabilitation Center vacated the property recently and moved to its new facility to Oronoko Township.
County commissioners voted to approve the “release of possibility of reverter” on the Berrien General Hospital property at a recent meeting. The reverter clause refers to the fact that the county conveyed the property to Berrien General in 1993 with the original deed stating that the property would revert back to the county if it stopped being used for health care.
“The County does not wish to preserve the Reversionary Interest,” the resolution stated. “To provide record notice of its intentions, the County hereby releases, waives, terminates, and extinguishes the Reversionary Interest, together with any possibility of reverter, right of reversion, power of termination, right of entry, or other reversionary or future interest of any kind in the Property created by or arising under the Deed.”
“The County intends that no reverter provided for in the Deed shall operate at any time after the date of this instrument, and that fee simple title to the Property shall remain in the present record owner and its successors and assigns without interruption,” it further stated.
The county board’s action means that the building and surrounding acreage will remain the property of Corewell Health which is the successor institution to the former Berrien General Hospital.
“As it stands, Corewell still owns the property; however, the County has committed to working with them to determine its best long-term disposition,” Berrien County Community Development Director Dan Fette said. “We expect these discussions to continue over the coming weeks.”
When asked about the possibility of state or federal grants being available to pay for the demolition of the building, Fette said there aren’t any available funds for such work at present. Fette and others have said that the building contains asbestos and estimates of the cost of demolishing the building could be in the millions of dollars.
That assessment was echoed by Berrien Township Supervisor Bryan Bixby. Bixby said that his most recent tour of the building showed that it was more deteriorated than he expected it to be. He noted that he had been told that it would cost millions of dollars to tear it down.
Fette said there aren’t grants available right now to pay for such a project. “Regarding grant funds – the state and federal funded demolition programs we previously relied on have expired,” Fette said. “While we are hopeful that additional resources may become available in future budget cycles, there are currently no active grant funds available for us to access.”
Ideas
suggested
In recent years, both Berrien County and Berrien Township officials have speculated on the future of the Berrien General property. Ideas suggested ranged from adding the property to the nearby Love Creek County Park to converting the site into a future commercial development.
Berrien Township officials had considered rezoning the Berrien General property to commercial earlier this year but ended up not following through with that proposal.
The planning commission and township board both decided against any rezoning of the property in June after a neighbor pointed out that the township’s future land use plan identified the area as public and not commercial. He further was concerned that a commercial development would change the character of the neighborhood.
