The Unverferth House on Monday, located at 190 King Ave. Credit: Daniel Bush | Campus Photo Editor
A temporary free housing facility for patients and families seeking treatment at the Wexner Medical Center, was unanimously approved to be demolished and replaced to create 23 units.
The Unverferth House — located at 190 King Ave. — currently has eight units and most often serves heart patients, as it is located less than a mile from the Richard M. Ross Heart Hospital, according to its website.
The pitch was presented to the University Area Commission on Wednesday to the review board by Dave Perry, a representative for the Unverferth House. He said the proposal is to completely redevelop and rebuild the house.?
The house was founded as a tribute to Dr. Donald Unverferth, a cardiologist at Wexner Medical Center who passed away in 1988. The house was opened by his widow, Barb Unverferth, in 1989, according to the website.?
Megan Unverferth Glosser, daughter of Unverferth, said in the meeting her father’s role in the Ohio State community shared the same sense of care that the house provides.?
“The house is basically a home-away-from-home for patients and families of those patients,” Glosser said. “Primarily it’s serving, right now, patients of the heart transplant program. When space is available, we do open up to other transplant patients, cancer patients, pretty much anybody we can try to serve.”
The house currently has eight units available for patients, but the goal is to be able to serve more, Glosser said.?
Perry said to accomplish this, the standing Unverferth House would be torn down, and a building with 23 units will be built in its place.?
“The need is great for providing more temporary housing for families and patients that are at Ohio State university hospitals,” Perry said.?
While under review by the board, University Area Commissioner Demetreus Moorer-Saunders said he had concerns with parking availability on both the street and in the new building’s lot.?
In response to parking concerns, Perry said the house offers shuttles to transport patients to university hospitals.
“We have a very close working relationship with the medical center, so they provide a free shuttle for [patients], back and forth to the hospital,” Glosser said. “We will have on-street parking passes for people wanting to park at the house, but also they do park at the university parking lots.”?
In a unanimous decision, the review board voted to approve the proposal.?
Dustin Todd, senior architect at Archall Architects, said the project will have final design documents drawn up within the next month, and the project’s architects are likely to begin work this summer.
The article was edited on Feb. 24 at 8:19 a.m. to correct that the Unverferth House will be expanded to 23 units, not a 23-story building.
