Issues. People. Events.

During an interview last month Waterbury Hospital CEO Darlene Stromsted told the Waterbury Observer that high visibility was one of the factors being considered in deciding where to build a $400 million replacement hospital. The electrifying development of a new hospital in the city emerged in September when a capital investment company out of Texas, LHP Hospital Group, partnered with Saint Mary's Hospital, and Waterbury Hospital. The proposed merger is winding its way through the state permitting process, and the final site selection for the new, for-profit hospital, is expected to be announced within the next month. Mayor Neil O'Leary is lobbying hard to get the hospital built in downtown, and if his efforts are successful, could there be a more visible site than the one Saint Mary's Hospital sits on now? Every day there are 45,000 vehicles driving west on I-84 that sweep around a big curve and come face-to-face with Saint Mary's Hospital. If the new hospital is built on that site it will redefine the landscape in Waterbury, and project a modernized image of the Brass City. Photograph By Chelsea Murray (who was sitting in the passenger's seat)