Demolition of Old Hospital Delayed, Case Heads to Oregon Court of Appeals

HILLSBORO, OR-Washington County is appealing a Land Use Board of Appeals Ruling that prevents it from tearing down a 77-year-old county hospital en route to selling the land to Lowe’s Home Improvement. The appeal will be filed with the Oregon Court of Appeals in the next couple of days, according to a source at the county.

The hospital sits on 15 acres of land that the county wants to sell to Lowe’s for $7 million. The land and the building are within the Hillsboro city limits — on Southeast Tualatin Valley Highway between the Bonnie L. Hays Small Animal Shelter and Home Depot — and both the city and the county are in favor of the project. The problem is that the hospital, which was placed on the city’s cultural resource inventory in 1992, sits smack dab in the middle of the would-be Lowe’s Home Improvement parking lot.

Hillsboro resident Kay Demlow, who is also said to be trying to have the structure listed on the National register of Historic Places, appealed to the land-use board after the Hillsboro City Council allowed the county to remove the historic designation without a public hearing. The land-use board ruled Jan. 12 that the county could remove a historic designation from the Branch Building only if it showed that Hillsboro “imposed” the designation on the county and that the county objected to it. County officials says they did not object, but only because, at the time, it would not have made a difference.