I'm being reeled in by the company I work for to do some pre-consulting on all this as I'm one of the few staff we have that is very familiar with the region in case we decide to attempt to do any work on this project in the future. Obviously we're years ahead of any concrete announcement on anything so this is all just speculation.
So far we're looking over the viable locations in the region that make the most sense for a very large metropolitan hospital. That includes looking into everything from physical space for a building, access to major arterial roads (when planning something like an acute hospital, you want to ensure vehicular traffic to/from it can flow like a river), highways, rapid/bus transit, the possibility of viable flight paths for helicopter access and all that other boring stuff. Based on our very early work so far, the location of what is currently The Aud makes lots of sense. There is already a lot of land there and neighbouring parcels could also be appropriated in due time for expansion. The distance to the LRT is a bit of a setback, though. I know everyone on this forum is /r/fuckcar mentality to the point it's like they forget we need them for 90% of things, but most people who work in health care tend to rely on vehicles (they may work out of town, can be on call 24/7, are not able to put their faith into an LRT that seems to constantly be fucking up and so on...you really can't have nurses be even 15 minutes late in a field like that). Having it as close as possible to the LRT is obviously going to be highly ideal. But access to arterial roads and highway transportation is also going to be useful. A dedicated place for helicopter transport would also be important, though it's not common hospitals even have helipads on them these days.
Looking south of the existing LRT terminus at Fairway Station is also another potential option, assuming the LRT actually gets expanded to Cambridge anytime soon. I'm not holding my breath on that, though. Nonetheless there is a lot of land available in the City of Cambridge, but considering this is primarily going to be a collaboration between Grand River Hospital and St. Mary's Hospital, it is more likely to stay within the Kitchener and Waterloo borders (but that's entirely up to the foundations that manage those two hospitals). As someone mentioned as well, Cambridge Memorial recently had a large emergency expansion and are slowly modernizing the rest of the building, so I can't see Cambridge being chosen for a new hospital for a couple more decades. They primarily serve as the acute care facility for that city, whereas the rest of the hospitals tend to be a mixture of the two.
Now as a team of architects and urban planners, we're trying to look at ways where we could work within the existing urban core (downtown, uptown or at least directly near the LRT line). Obviously hospitals don't need a large footprint anymore and you can just build up. That is, personally, my ideal option but it's not really up to us - but here's hoping. Like honestly you could have a 70 floor skyscraper hospital if you really wanted, so long as you had a real smart elevator management system in place. And, well, if evacuating a building with thousands of people in the event of a massive catastrophe like a fire was realistically easy...it is not, haha...so there are realistic limits with how dense you can go.
If I could just magically wave a wand and take over property, I'd say simply acquire all the property that exists across from the current hospital between Pine Street and Andrew Street up to the cemetery. Apart from the Kings Tower apartment building, there is almost nothing there but derelict parking lots and more derelict parking lots. CKCO is moving (has moved?), the guy who owns Central wants to sell it - blaming the LRT for lower revenue. There would be enough space there to build a massive new hospital with direct connections (tunnels and bridges) that can connect it to the existing GRH facility. Since we've already got the regional cancer centre there, it would be totally easy to transform the rest of the existing building to handle things like oncology, neurology, special testing, hemodialysis and medium term stays for things like psychiatry and post-surgery recuperation. You've got the LRT, multiple bus routes, the new train station 1 stop away, meaning the transit is there. All of that is very suitable since you have people, particularly students, who commute to the hospital from across the city and even out of region...a lot of McMaster students doing residencies here, for example. The only real issue is the strain that would put on infrastructure, particularly the arterial roads and LRT system. You obviously don't want traffic issues and people being late for work because our toy train can't handle a bit of freezing rain.
Ultimately it'll all come down to money more than anything, so we'll just have to wait and see. It'll be years before anything concrete is announced and even more before you see a bunch of dorks in suits holding shovels upside down doing the so called groundbreaking. It'll be an interesting process to watch, however.
So far we're looking over the viable locations in the region that make the most sense for a very large metropolitan hospital. That includes looking into everything from physical space for a building, access to major arterial roads (when planning something like an acute hospital, you want to ensure vehicular traffic to/from it can flow like a river), highways, rapid/bus transit, the possibility of viable flight paths for helicopter access and all that other boring stuff. Based on our very early work so far, the location of what is currently The Aud makes lots of sense. There is already a lot of land there and neighbouring parcels could also be appropriated in due time for expansion. The distance to the LRT is a bit of a setback, though. I know everyone on this forum is /r/fuckcar mentality to the point it's like they forget we need them for 90% of things, but most people who work in health care tend to rely on vehicles (they may work out of town, can be on call 24/7, are not able to put their faith into an LRT that seems to constantly be fucking up and so on...you really can't have nurses be even 15 minutes late in a field like that). Having it as close as possible to the LRT is obviously going to be highly ideal. But access to arterial roads and highway transportation is also going to be useful. A dedicated place for helicopter transport would also be important, though it's not common hospitals even have helipads on them these days.
Looking south of the existing LRT terminus at Fairway Station is also another potential option, assuming the LRT actually gets expanded to Cambridge anytime soon. I'm not holding my breath on that, though. Nonetheless there is a lot of land available in the City of Cambridge, but considering this is primarily going to be a collaboration between Grand River Hospital and St. Mary's Hospital, it is more likely to stay within the Kitchener and Waterloo borders (but that's entirely up to the foundations that manage those two hospitals). As someone mentioned as well, Cambridge Memorial recently had a large emergency expansion and are slowly modernizing the rest of the building, so I can't see Cambridge being chosen for a new hospital for a couple more decades. They primarily serve as the acute care facility for that city, whereas the rest of the hospitals tend to be a mixture of the two.
Now as a team of architects and urban planners, we're trying to look at ways where we could work within the existing urban core (downtown, uptown or at least directly near the LRT line). Obviously hospitals don't need a large footprint anymore and you can just build up. That is, personally, my ideal option but it's not really up to us - but here's hoping. Like honestly you could have a 70 floor skyscraper hospital if you really wanted, so long as you had a real smart elevator management system in place. And, well, if evacuating a building with thousands of people in the event of a massive catastrophe like a fire was realistically easy...it is not, haha...so there are realistic limits with how dense you can go.
If I could just magically wave a wand and take over property, I'd say simply acquire all the property that exists across from the current hospital between Pine Street and Andrew Street up to the cemetery. Apart from the Kings Tower apartment building, there is almost nothing there but derelict parking lots and more derelict parking lots. CKCO is moving (has moved?), the guy who owns Central wants to sell it - blaming the LRT for lower revenue. There would be enough space there to build a massive new hospital with direct connections (tunnels and bridges) that can connect it to the existing GRH facility. Since we've already got the regional cancer centre there, it would be totally easy to transform the rest of the existing building to handle things like oncology, neurology, special testing, hemodialysis and medium term stays for things like psychiatry and post-surgery recuperation. You've got the LRT, multiple bus routes, the new train station 1 stop away, meaning the transit is there. All of that is very suitable since you have people, particularly students, who commute to the hospital from across the city and even out of region...a lot of McMaster students doing residencies here, for example. The only real issue is the strain that would put on infrastructure, particularly the arterial roads and LRT system. You obviously don't want traffic issues and people being late for work because our toy train can't handle a bit of freezing rain.
Ultimately it'll all come down to money more than anything, so we'll just have to wait and see. It'll be years before anything concrete is announced and even more before you see a bunch of dorks in suits holding shovels upside down doing the so called groundbreaking. It'll be an interesting process to watch, however.