Axis Health Systems could be migrating the majority of its patient services to the Mercury Payments building at 150 Mercury Village Drive just south of the Durango Mall. But many boxes, including a traffic study, need to be ticked before the move is made.
Axis Health is named in a Jan. 3 Durango City Council meeting packet detailing a traffic study being prepared by PST Engineering for the Mercury Payments building in Mercury Village. In December 2021, the property was purchased by James Coleman, the managing partner of Mountain Capital Partners that owns Purgatory Resort.
The document, authored by PST Engineering, says Axis Health plans to consolidate many of its locations across town under one roof, the Mercury Payments building. The developer is planning a traffic study examining Axis Health’s traffic activity at the locations it plans to move to determine the health provider’s parking needs in Mercury Village.
Haley Leonard Saunders, spokeswoman for Axis Health, said consolidation has been a goal of the health provider for years. Axis Health is contracted to purchase the payments building, but first it must complete the city’s land use and development process.
If everything goes according to plan, behavioral health, primary care, oral health and administrative staff will be consolidated under one roof at the payments building, she said.
She said Axis Health’s crisis continuum services, which include detox, walk-in crisis, mobile crisis services and its respite program, will continue to be offered at the provider’s Crossroads facility on the Mercy Hospital campus.
“We’re all really excited about it if it is successful. It’ll be really beneficial for a lot of people,” she said.
PST Engineering will look at Axis Health’s five current offices to measure parking needs, city documents say. The City Council meeting packet says the health provider’s corporate office at Bodo Park has 34 parking spaces with access from U.S. 550/160 from Frontage Road, bicycle and pedestrian access from the Animas River Trail. City bus stops are also nearby.
La Plata Integrated Healthcare on Third Avenue, which offers primary care, mental health and substance abuse treatment, crisis care and dental care, has 165 parking spaces in addition to vehicle access at North Main and Park avenues and east 22nd Street, with bus stops nearby, say documents.
Durango Oral Health Clinic on Colorado Avenue hosts 26 parking spaces with vehicle access from Florida Road and, again, nearby bus stops, documents say.
One hundred thirty-one parking spaces are available at Columbine Behavioral Healthcare, which offers mental health and substance abuse treatment services and crisis care services. Vehicle access is available from U.S. Highway 550/160, pedestrian and bicycle access is provided by the Animas River Trail, and bus stops are once again nearby, documents say.
The Crossroads facility on the Mercy Hospital campus has 23 parking spaces, documents say. Vehicle access is provided through Highway 160. Bicycle access is available from the Three Springs development, but there’s no straight connectivity between Crossroads and Durango proper.
The La Plata Integrated Healthcare and Columbine Behavioral Healthcare facilities are located in mixed-use buildings “with a significant number of units” and were not used in calculations for parking demand because they don’t represent a large percentage of land use at those locations, documents say.
The medical offices see the highest parking use between 10 a.m. and noon, when spaces are used completely and from 3 to 4 p.m., when parking spaces are nearly fully occupied, say documents.
Mercury Village lot No. 1, where the payments building resides, could be split into three separate lots, 1A, 1B and 1C, for mixed and residential use, and the payments building would be contained in lot 1A, documents say.
The documents estimate about 200 parking spaces are available at Mercury Village lot No. 1 with a need for about 140 spaces. Parking will be shared with lot 1B should the planned subdivision into three lots be approved, documents say.
The Mercury Payments building has changed hands several times over the last several years. It was purchased by Coleman in 2021. Before that, Mercury Payment Systems Inc. had changed ownership multiple times and was purchased by Fidelity National Information Services (FIS) in 2019.
In November 2020, FIS Worldpay announced it would permanently close Mercury Village, transitioning its 250 Durango employees to remote work. The move left the building vacant for about a year.
cburney@durangoherald.com
