Ascension Spirit Medical Transportation Services plans to move from Stevens Point to Mosinee airport

Marshfield News-Herald

Editor's note: This story has been updated to clarify that the hanger expansion focuses on housing Ascension Spirit's Spirit 1 medical helicopter.

STEVENS POINT - Ascension Spirit Medical Transportation Services plans to base its Spirit 1 helicopter at Central Wisconsin Airport after failing to secure a deal with Stevens Point to expand its hangar.

Spirit Medical Transport revealed plans in May for a 19,000-square-foot hangar expansion at Stevens Point's municipal airport off State 66 to house its aircraft, ambulance parking and office and lodging space for staff. Five months later, Ascension is taking the project for its Spirit 1 helicopter up U.S. 51 to CWA in Mosinee.

City plan commissioners approved the Stevens Point airport project in the spring, but summer negotiations between city staff and Ascension stalled over terms of a land lease. Those conversations involved Stevens Point Public Utilities Director Joel Lemke and Mayor Mike Wiza.

Lemke said Ascension notified the city in mid-September it would explore options elsewhere for the project and not renew its existing $67,000 annual lease that runs through Nov. 30. Wiza declined to comment further.

Lemke said Ascension did not tell the city why it was withdrawing the project.

Ted Ryan, Ascension Wisconsin Spirit Medical Transport director, said in a statement issued by a spokesperson the city and Ascension failed to agree on infrastructure requirements for the hangar expansion and other terms for the land lease.

“As a result we have submitted a plan to the Central Wisconsin Joint Airport Board, which will allow for the continued delivery of services to our patients and the communities we serve," Ryan said in a statement. "We appreciate the enthusiastic response we have received from airport staff in Mosinee and look forward to discussing this project with the Joint Airport Board on Friday.”

The Mosinee airport's board will meet at 8 a.m. Friday to vote on the proposed lease. The group overseeing CWA includes elected county board members from Marathon and Portage counties.

The Spirit ground and air medical transport base at the Stevens Point airport arrived in 2017 after Ascension sold Saint Joseph's Hospital in Marshfield, where Spirit originally was based. Marshfield Clinic, which bought Saint Joseph's and renamed it the Marshfield Medical Center, now plans to also acquire Ascension's Saint Clare's Hospital in Weston, as well as its diagnostic center in Weston and Flambeau Hospital in Park Falls.

Brian Grefe, Central Wisconsin Airport director, wrote in a memo to the airport's board that negotiations with Ascension began in September. The healthcare organization said it intends to build a roughly 18,000-square-foot hangar on nearly 75,000 square feet of property leased from CWA.

Grefe wrote that Ascension aims to start construction in early November and open the hangar by the end of August 2020. The lease will last for 10 years with extension options. The lease would generate $20,968 in annual revenue for CWA, according to the memo.

The proposed hangar would be able to accommodate two medical helicopters, a medical airplane and ambulance parking, according to the memo.

Spirit provides critical care transport for patients in central and northern Wisconsin and operates five ground bases, 12 ambulances and two helicopters.

Contact reporter Alan Hovorka at 715-345-2252 or ahovorka@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ajhovorka.