Dr. Kamal Tiwari pulled his petition for a new medical park Wednesday, hours before it was to be reviewed by the Bloomington City Council.

"The debate is over. We are done dealing with the city," said Shyam Desigan, Tiwari's business manager.

Scrapping his proposal for a Southern Indiana Medical Park II near the intersection of West Tapp Road and Ind. 37, for which he had sought city approval, Tiwari has set his sights on a bigger project in the county.

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Earlier this month, he filed plans for a new hospital — a mile south from the 101-acre site where he wanted to build the medical park — with the county's planning department.

Unlike his city proposal, the hospital plan does not require zoning approval or any public hearings.

An earlier version of the medical park plan met heavy opposition from Bloomington Hospital officials because of an "inpatient" use that would allow patients to stay overnight.

Hospital leaders feared a new, for-profit hospital would threaten Bloomington Hospital's nonprofit mission to provide services to the community.

Tiwari agreed to drop the controversial inpatient beds from the medical park and move forward a revised plan.

That plan, set to go before council members Wednesday, would have sought approval for medical and professional offices, light manufacturing and commercial uses.

In fact, it was Tiwari's third revision of the medical park.

Before the inpatient debate, there were questions of environmental protection. Tiwari answered them by setting aside two-thirds of the site as green space. This commitment remained in all of the plan's revisions.

In a statement Wednesday, Tiwari said it's unfortunate that the city is "still trying to discourage building of a new hospital even though we have moved that project away from the city and they are going to use our present proposal of donating land for preservation to attack our project in the county."

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Tiwari also noted that he would revisit his rezoning request for the quarried area again.

Council member Chris Sturbaum also called the outcome unfortunate.

"We should have made the deal when he had the chance to," he said. "The glitch in all of this was the hospital use."

He said the city and county need to work together more closely on issues such as zoning and planning.

Sturbaum said he would have supported the proposal Wednesday night. The proposal was not introduced or discussed by the city council.

What happened

Dr. Kamal Tiwari pulled his petition for the Southern Indiana Medical Park II shortly before it was to be discussed Wednesday night by the Bloomington City Council. The proposal was not introduced and will soon be deemed denied.

The proposal had come to council members from the city plan commission with no recommendation. With no council action, the proposal will expire July 13 — 90 days after the council received the proposal.

Reporter Sarah Morin can be reached at 331-4363 or by e-mail at smorin@heraldt.com.