POCATELLO — When the Portneuf Health Care Foundation shifted its focus four years ago and became 23-percent owner of Portneuf Medical Center in a partnership with LHP Hospital Partners, promises were made that the deal would one day pay health care dividends to the community.
Wednesday afternoon, flanked by two mayors and the Bannock County commissioners, Shaun Menchaca, president and chief executive officer of the foundation, said that day has arrived.
“We are building a multi-use, multi-element, truly world-class wellness complex for the community,” Menchaca said. “Several years ago, when the commissioners signed this deal to form this (partnership), we talked about the great things we could do and how we might help the community. This is part of the fruition of their vision and commitment to making this happen.”
The wellness complex Menchaca spoke of Wednesday morning in the Bannock County Commissioners office is an 80-acre, $10-million outdoor complex that will feature seven multi-use fields, four sand volleyball courts, three basketball courts, miles of paved walkways, an amphitheater that could seat up to 10,000 people, and a 6.35-acre urban fishing pond that will be constructed and maintained under the direction of the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.
It will be constructed on the parcel of land just north of the Bannock County Fairgrounds.
“There really is nothing else like this. (It will be) the largest and most complete wellness complex in the region,” Menchaca said. “We really believe it to be one of the best in the country.”
The decision to create the wellness complex came through years of studies and discussions regarding what the state of health is of those in Bannock County and what its citizens needed to get healthier. Menchaca said it came down to exercise.
“It’s not even that much exercise, it’s about 30 minutes a day that we really need people to participate,” he said.
Studies show Bannock County residents have just seven recreational facilities based on a per capita of 100,000 people, while Idaho’s average is 10 and the national average is 16. Other studies show the obesity rate in Bannock County is 30 percent while Idaho’s is 27 percent and the national benchmark is 25 percent.
Still another study shows that the health of Bannock County residents ranks them 30th out of Idaho’s 44 counties.
Menchaca said building the wellness complex is about giving all people in Bannock County a place where they can get that exercise regardless of socio-economic status or even their basic capabilities. The complex will come complete with accessibility for those with disabilities.
But the complex, while being built with the purpose of helping Bannock County residents healthier, will also pay financial dividends to the community, Menchaca believes.
“It will drive money to our community through the events, tournaments, football, jamborees and the kinds of things that this would draw to our community,” he said.
The funds to build the complex will come from the Portneuf Health Care Foundation, but the complex will be owned by Bannock County. An agreement will be created between the City of Pocatello and Bannock County for maintaining the new complex.
Menchaca said that construction will take two full seasons, starting in the spring of next year and coming to completion by the end of the summer in 2015.
“This is made possible through our ownership in Portneuf Medical Center,” Menchaca said. “This is one of the largest gifts ever given by a hospital-related organization.”