IU Health confirms: That’s where West Lafayette hospital will go
Mapping out four hospital plans for West Side. Plus, Food Finders launches Drive Away Hunger campaign in shadow of SNAP cuts. A tribute to Gladys Wright, trailblazing band leader who died this week.
Support for this edition comes from Purdue’s President Lecture Series. Join Purdue President Mung Chiang and Brent Yeagy, Purdue alum and CEO of Wabash, for “From Lab to Market: Unlocking Innovation Through Partnership.” This Presidential Lecture Series event will explore how collaboration fuels innovation and turns ideas into impact. The event is free and open to the public, but tickets are required. Please note the location for this event has changed. Reserve your seat today for the conversation Nov. 6 at 6 p.m. at the Convergence Center for Innovation and Collaboration (101 Foundry Drive, West Lafayette). Existing Yeagy tickets for Loeb Playhouse will be honored for Convergence, so there’s no need to reregister.
Support for Based in Lafayette also comes from Purdue Convocations, presenting The Beatles’ Abbey Road in full, live at Loeb Playhouse! Martin Sexton, a “master of dynamics” with an emotionally rich voice, brings his signature style to one of the greatest albums of all time. Hear your favorites including “Come Together,” “Something,” and “Here Comes The Sun” with compelling stories and folklore mixed in. A must-see for Beatles and music fans! Join us for The Martin Sexton Abbey Road Show / Friday, November 7, 8 PM / Loeb Playhouse. Buy Tickets.
IU HEALTH CONFIRMS REZONING REQUEST IS TIED TO WEST LAFAYETTE HOSPITAL PLANS
IU Health officials confirmed Friday that land targeted for rezoning just north of West Lafayette is, in fact, the hospital system’s choice to build its second hospital in Tippecanoe County.
IU Health Arnett, which has a hospital on the east side of Lafayette, is scheduled to take a rezoning request to the Area Plan Commission Nov. 19 to change uses for 21 acres at the southwest corner of Yeager Road and County Road 500 North from R3/multi-family residential to MR/medical related uses. That request, on an APC agenda released this week, did not include a reason for the rezoning request.
“Pending a final rezoning vote by the Tippecanoe County commissioners on Dec. 1, this is where IU Health intends to build its West Lafayette hospital,” Johnna Dexter-Wiens, an IU Health-West Region spokesperson, told BiL Friday.
“The location was selected strategically to support both the community’s current needs and the city’s anticipated continued growth and development in the vicinity, a commitment made when the project was announced in July 2025,” she said.
In July, IU Health announced it would put $214 million into facilities in Greater Lafayette, including West Lafayette’s first hospital with inpatient care, along with a new cancer center in Lafayette and a renovation of the IU Health Medical Offices on Sagamore Parkway West in West Lafayette into a multispecialty clinic. The hospital system did not commit to a specific location for the hospital at the time.
The Yeager/County Road 500 North site would put IU Health’s West Lafayette hospital roughly 1½ miles from a location proposed by Parkview Health, a Fort Wayne-based system, for a $200 million hospital with 40 in-patient beds and a 24-hour emergency department near Yeager Road, north of Kalberer Road, in the Purdue Research Park.
IU Health’s plans, as initially announced, were for a hospital that would offer a 24/7 emergency department, inpatient care, multiple operating rooms, a helipad for emergency transportation and advanced imaging and laboratory services.
Here’s more, including hospital plans in West Lafayette from Franciscan Health and Ascension St. Vincent, from a Thursday edition of Based in Lafayette:
What’s next: The IU Health Arnett rezoning request will go to the Area Plan Commission for a recommendation at 6 p.m. Nov. 19 at the County Office Building, 20 N. Third St. in Lafayette. Tippecanoe County commissioners would have the final say at 10 a.m. Dec. 1 at the County Office Building.
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FOOD FINDERS LAUNCHES FALL DRIVE AWAY HUNGER DRIVE IN SHADOW OF LOOMING SNAP CUTS
The timing for the launch of Food Finders Food Bank’s annual Drive Away Hunger fall food drive wasn’t lost on anyone Friday, less than a day before the federal government was set to cut Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program due wrangling in Washington, D.C., over the federal government shutdown.
Both things – the launch of a food drive that long ago set a goal to raise the equivalent of 800,000 meals and a pending SNAP cutoff that has had food pantries and social nonprofits scrambling for the past several days – come Saturday, Nov. 1.
“What a week,” Kier Crites Muller, CEO of Food Finders, said Friday. “We have been receiving calls all week. We are hearing the scared voices. We hear the panic when people are asking us for help and what other resources are available out there. Please, trust me when I say that Food Finders and our network of partners and our community will do everything in our power to provide food for our neighbors as long and as much as we can. But we cannot do it alone.”
SNAP benefits total $2.4 million a month in Tippecanoe County, going to 5,723 households with 12,219 people who have household incomes below 130% of poverty guidelines, according to numbers gathered by Food Finders. The average benefit for Tippecanoe County households covered by SNAP is $426. Across Food Finders’ 16-county region, those numbers are $8.8 million a month, going to 21,236 households with 45,987 people.
Crites Muller said the charitable food system wasn’t designed to replace federal food assistance, where every one meal offered through Food Finders’ network is typically matched by nine through SNAP benefits.
“It’s going to take millions of extra little steps with us, standing in the gap for one another, to get us through this month,” she said. “And hopefully it doesn’t last longer than that.”
The Drive Away Hunger food drive runs through Dec. 5.
To give: Go to www.food-finders.org/dah
To volunteer: Find volunteer opportunities at pantries and other sites at www.food-finders.org/get-involved/volunteer.
Food donation drop-off: 8 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Friday, Food Finders warehouse, 1210 N. 10th St. in Lafayette
To find food assistance: Food Finders has a county-by-county search of food pantries, community meals and other assistance at www.food-finders.org/find-help.
Drive Away Hunger fall drive events:
Nov. 26: 15th annual Feed the Need Day. Lafayette Media Group will hold collection drives that day at the four Pay Less Super Markets in Lafayette and West Lafayette.
Nov. 27: Fleet Feet will host the Gobble Wobble 5K at 9:30 a.m. Thanksgiving Day at Cumberland Park in West Lafayette. To register, here’s a link.
Dec. 2: On Giving Tuesday, Indiana Packers and Zeigler Subaru will match donations up to the first $20,000 raised.
THIS AND THAT/OTHER READS …
Gladys Wright, a music teacher and celebrated band director, died this week. Wright was 100. Wright spent a career in music, including more than 30 years directing local school bands, including at Harrison High School, and was a trailblazing national advocate for women in the music profession. She and her late husband – Al G. Wright, longtime Purdue University band director – cut an influential path on campus and across the country. Purdue Bands had this tribute.
“I recognize and accept that the campus has not handled recent decisions as well as we should have,” IU Bloomington Chancellor – and former Purdue College of Liberal Arts dean) David Reingold said in a letter to Indiana Daily Student editors this week, announcing that the student paper would be allowed to resume publication. Bloomington Herald Times reporter Brian Rosenzweig had more details here after a rocky few weeks in Bloomington, after IU decisions to fire the Indiana Daily Student adviser and stop the print edition drew national attention and sparked allegations of censorship: “Indiana University reverses course, allows student newspaper to print again.”
That news came the same day Jim Rodenbush, IU’s former director of student media, sued the university. This is via the Indianapolis Star: “IU student newspaper adviser firing a ‘direct assault’ on First Amendment, new lawsuit says.”
Chalkbeat’s Aleksandra Appleton had this on an off-election year topic school districts across the state in a Senate Bill 1 era will be watching: “It’s a quiet election season in Indiana, but voters in six school districts will soon decide whether to support property tax measures that would fund teacher salaries, transportation, and student programming. … This year’s referendums are a test case in voter support at a time when Indiana is lowering property taxes and increasing how much of that funding some districts must share with charter schools. Many expect to raise less operating revenue through taxes over the next decade as a result of the caps placed by a sweeping property tax reform law passed earlier this year — a campaign priority for Gov. Mike Braun.” Read more here: “Indiana school referendum elections: Districts seek funding for teacher pay, class size, buses.”
Thanks, again, for support for this edition from Purdue Convocations, presenting The Martin Sexton Abbey Road Show / Friday, November 7, 8 PM / Loeb Playhouse. Buy Tickets.
Thanks, also, for support from Purdue’s President Lecture Series, presenting a conversation with Brent Yeagy, Purdue alum and CEO of Wabash, Nov. 6 at a new location, the Convergence Center for Innovation and Collaboration, 101 Foundry Drive, West Lafayette. Get free tickets here.
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Tips, story ideas? I’m at davebangert1@gmail.com.
IU could have handled the Daily Students paper better??? WTF? The chancellor broke the first amendment of the US Constitution at the direction of politicians in Indianapolis. They should have to resign - they don't get a do-over.
Just what we need 4 hospitals on the west side. SMH. One would be sufficient. Back in the day you needed the state to approve a hospital's "need". Now anyone with cash and the will to spend can open a building. How about they put ONE in a spot that can easily handle emergency access for transport to Indy? Like near an airport and/or an interstate? None of these will be more than a band-aid site to get you ready a transfer for Indy. FFS - Franciscan sent my young niece to Indy for a broken arm to be cast. They can't do that locally. Our healthcare system is broken and 4 Facilities just makes the problem worse.