The Gorge hopes to expand facilities

EPHRATA - The Grant County Planning Department is considering a request from The Gorge Amphitheater owner Live Nation to expand its operation to include more festival-goers and more facilities for them.

Live Nation applied this month to change its land use classification from Recreation Development to Master Planned Resort, and states it hopes to open a restaurant, café, cabins, outdoor cinema, grocery and camping stores, more stage space, additional RV spaces and camping locations.

Phase one of the project is slated to begin next year, with planning department and county commission approval, and would add more than 1,000 camping sites and recreation site additions.

Grant County commissioners Cindy Carter and Carolann Schwartz said the plans sound good to them.

"I think it's going to clean up some of the concerns that I have," Carter said. She said the plan lessens her concerns that the site is putting a burden on the nearby Quincy Valley Medical Center and county fire district number 3, that responds to the venue in cases of emergency.

The application states that this expansion of the facility would allow it to be a more "self-contained" facility, which Carter said sounds like a positive change.

"With a cinema and other recreational opportunities they're creating hopefully there will be less of a desire to get into trouble," she said. She added that with more people and stores, comes additional tax revenue for the county, hospital and fire districts.

Commissioner Carolann Swartz agrees and called the change "a smart business plan."

"If they're going to have a restaurant and store then there is no reason to get on the highway," she said, decreasing DUIs and other negative aspects of concerts.

Live Nation and the Quincy Valley Medical Center have been at odds since the hospital accused the concert-promoter of bringing in patrons that rack up unpaid hospital bills. The hospital said events held at The Gorge cost them about $400,000 last year in delinquent bills and increased hospital staff to handle the additional patients.

Over the Memorial Day weekend, the hospital said about half of the 100 emergency room patients were in town for The Gorge's Sasquatch music festival.

Representatives from the two sides met in April, and the hospital asked to be included in a concert management agreement that Live Nation signs with Grant County.

"I think Live Nation is wanting to do the right thing. I know Quincy Valley Medical Center gets frustrated because there is not a lot of open dialogue, but when you start pointing fingers and making accusations sometimes those lines close and I think that's what happened here," Swartz said. She said that the real problem is a $4.3 million debt that the hospital owes the county.

"I feel like the hospital may be trying to divert taxpayers' attention away from their debt obligation," she said.

"The thing that we forget is they have a license to conduct business. They have a right to conduct business here just like everybody else," she said. She added that after Patrick Witkowski, 21, of Des Moines died from a combination drug use and dehydration last year, Live Nation has attempted to correct problems for this year's events by buying water rights and making free water more available to patrons, improving road access for emergency vehicles and adding medical personnel inside the venue to handle minor injuries.

Swartz said that Live Nation cannot protect concert-goers from every danger and if the county puts "roadblocks in front of every business, we are not going to have business here," she said.