Iowa Health – Des Moines may end up having a hospital “on the Polk County side of West Des Moines.”

Less than two years after state health officials turned down a request by Iowa Health to build an 83-bed West Des Moines hospital in Dallas County, the health-care group is working on plans for what could become the new Michael R. Myers Hospital.

Iowa Health last week purchased an “undivided interest” in a 260,000-square-foot office complex at 1776 West Lakes Parkway from Knapp Properties Inc., along with three acres of adjacent land. The buildings are currently leased by Marsh Inc.

“We’ve always had an interest in developing a hospital in the western suburbs,” said Sid Ramsey, Iowa Health’s vice president of business development and marketing. “The opportunities for property in that area where other physicians’ offices have built just made good sense for us.”

Gerry Neugent, president of Knapp Properties Inc., declined to disclose the sale price, which he described as “fair market value.” Bill Knapp and an Iowa Health subsidiary “formed a new venture to put our interests into this property, which is pretty typical of our ownership ventures,” Neugent said. “This deal is not structured to be an investment in a hospital by Bill Knapp,” he added. “It was a sale of some interest in a property.”

Building a new hospital in West Des Moines would have been the most cost-effective approach to relieving a shortage of patient beds at Iowa Methodist Medical Center, Iowa Health officials have said. However, to build a new facility in Dallas County, rather than within Polk County, required approval by the Iowa Health Facilities Council, which denied the request in April 2004.

Pledged contributions of $28 million from the Michael R. Myers family for a West Des Moines hospital could be used if hospital services are provided at the West Lakes buildings, Ramsey said.