TURTLECREEK TWP. — Middletown Regional Hospital's proposed move to Warren County is beginning to look inevitable, despite opposition from some residents and officials here.

        The hospital has dropped its insistence on a new Interstate 75 interchange as a condition of the move, Larry James, vice president of marketing, said Wednesday afternoon.

        That removes a major obstacle, because the Ohio Department of Transportation and Warren County commissioners have resisted efforts to push through approval of an interchange at Greentree Road just north of Ohio 63.

        “We think it is the best option, but we're willing to listen to the experts,” Mr. James said. “The bottom line is we must move.”

        Alternatives are to improve or add roads linking to I-75 interchanges north at Ohio 122 and south at Ohio 63. The hospital also has dropped its requirement that Middletown be allowed to annex its new site — a major concern.

        “It's not a deal-breaker,” Mr. James said, noting that if annexation were blocked, Middletown would lose earnings-tax money when the hospital's 1,500-plus jobs moved out.

        Middletown Regional said in April it would build a campus at Greentree and Union roads just inside Warren County, replacing its crowded 84-year-old site in the heart of Middletown, in Butler County.

        The hospital has long served western Warren County, which doesn't have its own full-service hospital, so the location is a logical one, hospital officials say.

        “The communities we serve need us to do this, whether they realize it or not,” Mr. James said.

        A group of township residents calling itself “Keep Out” has fought the project.

        “Residents don't care so much about what goes in that area, they just don't want Middletown to annex it,” group organizer Chuck Turner said at an information meeting Wednesday night.

        Township Trustee Jim VanDeGrift told the 60 residents who attended that property owners are the ones who control the township's destiny: “If you don't sell it, it don't develop.”

        It may be too late for that.

        “My understanding is that a lot of the land is under the control of the (project) developers,” Mr. James said.

        Residents attending Wednesday's session said they would seek a meeting with Doug McNeill, president and CEO of the hospital, to express their concerns.

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