Allen County government's desire to sell about 100 potentially valuable acres on Lima Road has motivated the Byron Health Center to look for a new location — and it may have found one in the form of an historic campus that has been home to everything from an orphanage to a charter school to the YWCA.

Byron, which operates at 12101 Lima Road on land that was also home to a county-owned facility for tuberculosis patients between 1919 and 1976, has signed an option to buy part or all of the 24.5-acre site at 2000 N. Wells St. that was home to the St. Vincent Villa orphanage between 1886 and the late 1970s. Byron CEO Deb Lambert said her organization will spend the next several weeks analyzing the Wells Street property's physical and financial suitability before deciding whether to complete the purchase.

"We need to do a cost analysis. Can some of the buildings be repurposed? Can the soil bear the weight of a new building? If it's a good fit, (a deal) is a possibility," Lambert said. "We need a new building. We can't even get parts (for some of what we need now)." Heating and cooling alone costs hundreds of thousands of dollars annually.

A portion of the building Byron leases from the county date back to the 1940s and can accommodate about 500 patients. But with a normal patient count of about 150 and changes in health care, the current building no longer meets Byron's needs. "It's moving to home and community-based service," Lambert said. About 97 percent of Byron's residents are covered by Medicaid, which primarily serves low-income Hoosiers.

That makes a location closer to the city ideal, said Allen County Commissioner and Byron Board member Therese Brown. Although the county might be willing to negotiate a deal that would allow Byron to erect a new building on Lima Road, Brown said a move could increase the value of land that has attracted interest from several would-be developers in recent years.

"We told (Byron) we would hold off (any attempt to sell) until Jan. 1," said County Commissioner Nelson Peters. Converting the property to a "mixed use" development containing homes and businesses could net the county millions of dollars, Peters said.

"It's a gem of a property," developer Barry Sturges told The News-Sentinel in 2011.

Most of the original Byron Sanitarium buildings were razed decades ago. In addition to Byron Health, a few other buildings remain. Some would be razed; others — including buildings used by the County Highway Department and Election Board — would stay.

Should Byron move to Wells Street, the fate of the buildings on the former St. Vincent campus is less clear. Some are currently vacant, and "if they can be repurposed, that's a good thing. If not, it will be a business decision," Lambert said. The Roman Catholic Church sold the property to the YWCA in 1978, which in turn sold it to businessman Don Willis for use by his now-closed Imagine charter school in 2006.

Originally the Allen County Home, the county turned Byron over to the non-profit Recovery Health Services in 1991. The county at one point considered closing the facility and by 2004 Byron owed the county more than $1 million in overdue lease payments. But thanks to changes in Medicaid reimbursement the facility has paid its debts and is now in a strong financial position, Brown said. Under a 20-year lease signed in 2014, Byron pays the county $450,000 per year in rent and up to $450,000 annually for maintenance and repairs .