BUTLER TWP — Township planning commissioners Tuesday approved plans to renovate Butler Memorial Hospital.

The plans will be presented to the township commissioners at 6:30 p.m. Monday.

The plans, presented by Butler Healthcare Providers, the hospital's parent corporation, were approved after administrators, the hospital's hired development experts and Cindy Davis, township zoning and code officer, worked about a month to iron out details.

Butler Healthcare Providers' $120 million plan includes:

• Renovation of the emergency department

• A seven-story surgical tower with about 150,000 square feet of new space, including patient rooms and operating rooms

• A new entrance to the hospital with a drive from Route 68-East Jefferson Street

• An entrance atrium-lobby with space for classrooms.

Davis and Daniel Deiseroth, township engineer with Gateway Engineers, as well as township solicitor Leo Stepanian Jr., said at the March meeting they had problems with the hospital developers saying that no new parking spaces were needed after the addition.

The township's parking ordinance is determined by square footage of a building, not by the number of employees.

Hospital planners said because the majority of outpatient services are being moved off campus after construction, there will be less need for parking even though the building will be bigger.

Davis, Deiseroth and Stepanian all said because space inside the hospital will be open for the development of new services, the hospital will need to find more parking.

Both Davis and Tom King, an attorney for the hospital, said Tuesday they have met multiple times and the hospital will go before the township's zoning commission April 9 for a special exception to the parking ordinance.

The two also said they are "confident" an agreement will be reached.

King said the agreement is expected to allow the hospital to address parking as other areas of the hospital are developed for new uses.

As emergency department renovations continue, contractors are removing the last of materials from the Nixon-Sarver building, which is in the northeast corner of the hospital campus on East Brady Street.

The old nurses' dormitory will be removed to make way for the new tower.