Irondale council authorizes mayor to take "any steps" needed in dispute with Trinity Medical Center
The Irondale City Council tonight voted to authorize Mayor Tommy Joe Alexander to take "any and all steps" to protect the city's interests concerning Trinity Medical Center's decision to abandon its deal to build a new hospital in that city and move to Birmingham for bigger incentives.
City Attorney Greg Morris said he could not say whether the unanimous decision means the city will sue Community Health Systems, Inc., which owns Trinity.
Morris said a May 27 mediation session was unsuccessful. A Trinity spokeswoman could not be reached for comment tonight.
Irondale argues that the hospital corporation should "make it whole" for $32.5 million in bonds that the city took out for the project, announced in 2006. It was to include land, a water line and road improvements. In return, the hospital would bring needed revenue to the small city, leaders hoped.
Trinity dropped the project last year after Birmingham leaders offered more money for the hospital to move to a partially built hospital on U.S. Highway 280.
Trinity says it cannot simply repay the money it has borrowed, because the city owes $8 million in interest even if it pays off the bonds at the first opportunity.
Trinity officials have said they intend to work with Irondale to resolve the dispute. The company has continued making lease payments on the land at Interstate 459 and Grants Mill Road where it once planned to build.
Irondale still has about $21 million of the bonds in the bank, but has built one water line, purchased the land and was preparing to make other changes for the hospital.
