Hutchinson has filed a lawsuit with McLeod County District Court against the owners of property the city and the then city-owned Hutchinson Area Health Care sought two years ago for the future site of its senior housing campus.

In the complaint filed June 25 by City Attorney Marc Sebora, the city is seeking the return of $25,000 in earnest money paid to Hazel Sitz and the estate of her deceased husband, Donald. The city had approved in September 2006 spending $1.3 million to purchase 37 acres of land east of Menards and south of Edmonton Avenue.

The hospital later purchased a 43.4-acre parcel of land east of the Sitz property for $977,000 and intends to build its future senior campus there.

The city and hospital later pulled out of the original deal, apparently after learning Sitz had granted an easement through the middle of her property five months earlier to local developer Bernie McRaith. McRaith owns the original five-acre Sitz home site directly behind Menards.

For more of this story, reader the July 3 print edition of the Hutchinson Leader.

(Terry Davis is a Hutchinson Leader staff writer. E-mail him at davis@hutchinsonleader.com.)