Nearly a dozen homes will start disappearing from the Witherbee Neighborhood next week, so Tabitha Health Care can try to solve its parking problems.
“One of our major issues here is lack of parking,†said Tabitha spokeswoman Becky Fulmer. “People are constantly circling.â€
The rehabilitation hospital and elder-care center at 48th and Randolph streets received city permits to knock down and haul away 11 homes and a six-unit apartment building it owns on South 47th and South 48th streets. The properties were surrounded by orange construction fence last week, and demolition should begin Monday, Fulmer said.
Tabitha bought the nearby properties — which have a total taxable value of nearly $1.3 million — between 2001 and 2016, according to the Lancaster County Assessor’s website.
The health care center monitors the neighborhood for available properties, Fulmer said. In 2009, Tabitha demolished several homes it owned along 48th Street — north of J — to build a parking lot. The work that will start next week will remove three more houses on 48th Street to extend that parking lot to L Street.
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Tabitha is also removing seven homes on both sides of 47th Street, north of Tabitha, and the apartment building across Randolph Street to the south, but doesn’t have final parking lot plans for those areas, she said.
Down the street, Bryan Medical Center spent two decades buying dozens of houses covering four city blocks near its landlocked east campus. It leveled those homes last year and is building a $25 million outpatient surgery center and physician office building.