Until recently, Park Nicollet Methodist Hospital regarded the creek that passes by its southwest side as a nuisance, a barrier, a swamp.

Now, windows frame it, artwork celebrates it, walls curve toward it. Hospital executives love that piece of Minnehaha Creek -- so much so that they're moving it.

This winter, the St. Louis Park hospital will carve out a new, curvier route for the creek. It's one the Minnehaha Creek Watershed District, a partner in the project, says looks more like it once did.

"When this was all farmland out here, the point was to drain off the water as quickly as you could," said Eric Evenson, district administrator. "And to do that, you straightened out all the creeks."

After the restoration project, patients, visitors and staff will be able to follow and cross the creek's new bends on a boardwalk, pausing at rest stations along the way.

The $1.5 million project is an uncommon one: Creeks don't get re-meandered every day. But it's part of a movement in health care.

The effort across the health care industry is to enhance patients' access to natural environments.

Nature helps recovery

In 1984, Dr. Roger Ulrich published what has become a classic study of how patients' views of nature influenced their recovery. Those who could see trees from their windows had fewer complications and needed less potent drugs.

"Because of where we're at -- with hospitals rebuilding, remodeling, restoring what was built in the '50s -- Roger's work is big right now," said Jeannie Larson, program manager for the Center for Therapeutic Horticulture at the University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum.

"People are at a crossroads ... a place where they can now practice what he preached," she said.

Park Nicollet reconsidered the route of the creek when it was designing a new Heart and Vascular Center that borders the creek. The center opened in August 2005.

"At some point we said, 'Let's not make this a barrier. Let's look at it as a benefit,' " said Duane Spiegle, vice president of real estate and support services for Park Nicollet Health Services.

The creek's boardwalk will help with part of the center's mission -- teaching patients new behaviors. While the center's kitchen helps patients learn how to cook healthy food, the boardwalk could promote exercise.

Creek needed restoration

In working with the Minnehaha Creek Watershed District, the idea of re-meandering the creek gained traction. The Watershed District had recently completed a study that found that the section of the creek needed restoration.

Work on the creek relocation will begin in November or December, when the water table is low, said Robert Riesselman, Park Nicollet's director of engineering.

Workers will carefully carve out the new pathway, rebuilding creek beds and banks, then blocking the old path to reroute the water down the new one. The curves will slow the flow of water, so more pollutants and sediments will settle.

"This is stuff that I used to do when I was seven years old playing in the sandbox," Evenson said. "This is a really big sandbox."

The work requires myriad permits, some from the city, some from the Watershed District. In the past, the Watershed District and the hospital have struggled over wetland setbacks and other regulations at the site.

"We almost didn't give them a permit" for the heart center expansion, Evenson said. "There was a little bit of tension -- a lot of tension."

Now, in addition to helping fund $550,000 of the project's cost, the Minnehaha Creek Watershed District is giving Park Nicollet a "Watershed Heroes" award in September for its work with the St. Louis Park campus.

By spring, when the hospital plans to open its new Cancer Center and accompanying healing garden, the creek should be accessible to the average patient or visitor for the first time. From then on, the hospital will be responsible for maintaining its boardwalks and banks.

"Ten years ago, it wasn't considered an amenity," Spiegle said. "Now, it's a big part of our mission."

Jenna Ross • 612-673-7168