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Lexington City Council voted last week to approve a conditional use permit for Washington and Lee University to build a new student health center on East Denny Circle on the university’s campus. The permit had been presented to the Lexington Planning Commission at its Dec. 14 meeting, and the Commission voted 4-0 to recommend approval.
The proposed building was not included in the school’s 2022 master plan, which is why the school needed to apply for a conditional use permit to allow the construction of the building.
Through the end of the 2022-23 school year, the student health center had been housed in Davis Hall, which was demolished over the summer.
The original plan was to move the health center and the student counseling center into the new building being built on the site of Davis and Baker halls along with the Williams School of Commerce Economics and Politics. The site was determined to not be big enough for all three uses in the same building, so a new building for the health center and counseling center is being built.
In September of 2022, the Planning Commission approved a conditional use permit to convert a building on General’s Lane, which had previously held the university’s Development/Advancement Department, into a temporary home for the student health center, which was subsequently approved by City Council.
The new building will be constructed in an undeveloped portion of campus on East Denny Circle, near the school’s football field and tennis courts. Though the conditional use permit was simply to allow the school to proceed with building a medically related facility on the campus and not as much on the designs for the building, W&L university planner Hugh Latimer included some preliminary designs with the application, which show that the footprint of the two-story building will total a little over 1,000 square feet.
Vice Mayor Marilyn Alexander asked if any consideration was given to having space for emergency medical services to access the building with an ambulance should the need arise. City planner Arne Glaeser replied that he believed that access for emergency services was part of why the site was chosen for the health center, and that the university was aware that it needed to include an off-street access area for ambulances. A formal site plan will be presented to the city Planning Commission at a later date.
Council member Nicholas Betts made the motion to approve the conditional use permit, with Council member Charles Aligood providing the second. The motion passed in a 3-0 vote. Council members Chuck Smith and Leslie Straughan recused themselves from the discussion and vote, citing the fact that their spouses are employed by the university as the reason. Council member David Sigler was not in attendance.
