This diagram shows the south parking lot of Chandler Regional Medical Center where a new 4-story medical office building is slated to be built. The Chandler Planning and Zoning Commission recommended approval, at its Sept. 17 meeting, for both the medical office tower plan and the extension of a medical marijuana facility use permit.
One of the facilities seeking an approval recommendation from the city during the Chandler Planning and Zoning Commission’s Sept. 17 study session and regular meeting was originally granted a planned-area development with an “82” in it.
That is, it was approved in 1982.
That was approval for Chandler Regional Medical Center, for which the development permitting history was included in a staff report on its latest project, a new four-story medical office building, to be built on the hospital’s campus at Alma School and Frye roads.
Called “MOB II,” or Medical Office Building No. 2, the tower is to be built in the south parking lot of the medical complex, near Fairview Street.
Its 100,000 square feet of new space will make it eventually viable to tear down what a staff report calls the “Morrison building, or MOB 1, that’s to the northeast of the site and has 65,000 square feet of medical office space.
This and other adjustments will help the complex offset the parking spaces lost by building the new tower, the report states.
Discussion during the study session seemed to bring to light the discrepancy between what is enough parking by formula and/or written requirement, versus how medical center staff and users have experienced parking availability on an everyday basis.
The medical center's campus has 2,237 spaces and even with the loss of 35 spaces for the office building construction, it still would be above the requirement of 2,155 spaces, according to the staff report.
Commissioner Michael Quinn said his experience is that parking is tight, as it is, now at the medical center.
“As someone who spent every single day there, for three months in 2025, I can tell you that they already have a parking problem,” Quinn said.
The stipulation the medical center is seeking was modified to call for the Morrison building to be vacated within 18 months of the new tower’s occupancy, and is to be demolished within 24 months of occupancy “unless a new parking solution is developed.”
The commission unanimously approved the plan amendment and the only other item on the regular meeting agenda on Sept. 17: recommended approval of extension of a use permit for the Ponderosa to allow the co-location of an ancillary medical marijuana facility.
Board chair Rick Huemann’s comment prior to staff presentation about Ponderosa is that “this thing just keeps coming back and back and back.”
Ponderosa had been returning to both the board and the Chandler City Council for one-year permit approvals, though a code amendment approved by the council in July means council is the body that can customize time frames for this type of permit, rather than flat one-year time frames.
The Sept. 17 study session also included a presentation from city budget director Matt Dunbar on the bond and charter questions on the November mail-in election ballot.
Jason W. Brooks News Editor | Chandler Independent
Jason W. Brooks joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in July 2021 as an associate editor. After a year covering Buckeye, he has covered Chandler since the fall of 2022, in addition to assisting the Daily Independent throughout his time at INI.
Education: University of New Mexico, bachelor of arts in journalism and mass communication, print emphasis, English minor.
Random Fact: He and his siblings witnessed a Space Shuttle launch and landing in the same year in person, on opposite coasts.
Hobbies: Karaoke, bicycling and American Sign Language.
By 
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here