Mayo proposes pharmacy in expansion

Mark Fischenich, The Free Press, Mankato, Minn.
·2 min read

May 16—MANKATO — It's not in the same league as the $155 million bed-tower expansion that broke ground last week, but Mayo is already planning its next addition to the Mankato hospital.

Mayo Clinic Health System plans to construct a 2,600 square foot pharmacy on the southwest side of the Mankato hospital complex and a 60-stall parking lot near Main Street.

The opposite corner of the complex is the site of the just-started vertical bed-tower expansion, adding three floors on top of the hospital's existing emergency department, cancer center, heart clinic and specialty care foyer. That new space will be home to 121 hospital beds by early 2024.

As with the bed-tower plan in January, Mayo's pharmacy and parking lot plans first became public with a request filed with the city of Mankato to amend the hospital's campus plan. City ordinances require the process for any "institutional overlay district" — a municipal strategy that aims to support growth by institutions such as hospitals and colleges while also protecting adjacent neighborhoods.

Mayo declined to provide additional details to The Free Press about the pharmacy project at this time, other than to confirm that the facility will be an internal department storing pharmaceuticals and filling prescriptions for use within the hospital and will not have any retail component.

Plans submitted to the city show the pharmacy being constructed in the open space northwest of the Mankato Clinic entrance and adjacent to the southern and eastern wings of the existing bed tower.

The parking project will expand the lot near Main Street and Garden Boulevard from 69 to 129 stalls.

Both the Mankato Planning Commission and the City Council have now given preliminary approval to the plan with conditions that include matching the pharmacy's building materials with the existing hospital, landscaping the area around the parking lot, providing screening to keep light from the parking lot from reaching adjacent homes and holding a pre-construction meeting with neighboring property owners.