City officials Monday will consider a proposed agreement with the heirs of the original Shawano Medical Center property that could clear the way for its future development.
Special back-to-back meetings of the Shawano Finance Committee and Common Council have been scheduled for 8 a.m. Monday at City Hall, 127 S. Sawyer St.
The city is not releasing any details of the proposed agreement until officials have a chance to discuss it at those meetings.
City Clerk Karla Duchac said Friday not all Common Council members have had a chance to review the agreement.
Attorneys for the city and the heirs have been in negotiations for months over a deal that would have the heirs sign off on waiving a deed restriction on the property that is home to Shawano Medical Center.
The hospital is relocating later this year adjacent to ThedaCare Physicians on County Road B.
City Administrator Brian Knapp said in January that attorneys were drafting an agreement, but he wouldn’t say whether there was any financial offer being made.
“We’re involved in producing an offer to the heirs to address their interests in the property,” Knapp said at the time.
The appraised value of the original 3.5-acre parcel is $875,000, Knapp said.
The city and ThedaCare entered into an agreement to market the property for development, but a deed restriction attached to the property more than 100 years ago, when the property was acquired by the city, has held up those plans.
The city acquired a roughly 3-acre park property from Susan Smalley in 1901, according to a news article in the April 30, 1931, edition of the Shawano County Journal about plans for a hospital on the site.
According to the deed restriction, the property reverts back to the heirs if it is used for anything other than a park.
The site became home to Shawano Medical Center in 1931.
Officials have no explanation for why a hospital was allowed to locate on the property, and there is nothing in the record that shows the deed restriction was ever waived.
SMC purchased additional land for expansion over the years, and the hospital campus now occupies about 10 acres. The deed restriction applies only to the original three.
City officials hired the law firm of Davis and Kuelthau in December 2012 to track down the heirs.
Eleven heirs were identified and contacted early last year.
The list of heirs includes no direct blood relatives of Susan Smalley, who died in New Jersey in 1909, according to a genealogy chart provided to the city by Davis and Kuelthau.
Instead, the heirs are the descendants of the second marriage of Georgianna Hoadley, of New York, who was previously married to Susan’s son, William. The park property was part of a marital settlement when the first marriage ended.
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