Senior living facilities and apartments part of updated plan presented to City Council
James Kerby of Phin-Ker Ventures, the developer of the property surrounding the Lakeway Regional Medical Center, shared his vision in January for what he says could become one of the nation’s premier medical campuses.
As the May opening approaches for the LRMC, a full-service acute care hospital at 100 Medical Parkway, plans for the LRMC campus originally drawn up more than four years ago are beginning to take shape. Kerby attended the Jan. 17 at a Lakeway City Council meeting to give city leaders an overview of the updated plan.
“We want this to be a first-class facility,” Kerby said of the campus. “We want Lakeway to be proud of it, and we want to be proud of it.”
Lakeway City Council more than four years ago approved a general campus plan that included a hotel, medical office building and retail space on 53 acres of land. AquaLand Development, which was a partnership between Kerby and Mark Smith, purchased the property and took over the project from the original developers in 2009.
Last year, Kerby left AquaLand Development and bought out Smith’s interest in the campus project. Kerby then partnered with Kendall Phinney, who owned 13 acres of land adjacent to the LRMC campus property, and formed Phin-Ker Ventures.
“I said, ‘Let’s combine our tracts and make this one superb development as opposed to one great development,’” Kerby said.
Phin-Ker Ventures updated the campus plan to cover more acres and include an apartment complex and senior living facilities.
Apartment complex
The proposed 250-unit apartment complex would be the first apartment complex in Lakeway and require the city to change the zoning for part of the medical campus.
There is one section of land in Lakeway near the intersection of Serene Hills Drive and Hwy. 71 zoned for apartments, but the property has not been developed, Lakeway City Manager Steve Jones said.
Multiple city leaders have expressed skepticism of an apartment complex on the LRMC campus, saying it could make a bad traffic situation around the hospital even worse.
“I think the apartments might be a little bit of an overkill,” Mayor Dave DeOme said.
While Kerby said in January that Phin-Ker Ventures would seek city approval for the apartment complex in the near future, Phinney said Feb. 8 that Phin-Ker Ventures is postponing that for now and is moving forward with other parts of the project. He added that Phin-Ker Ventures is still hoping to get city staff support for an apartment complex and that he believes having hospital employees live in apartments on the campus would help ease traffic in the area.
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