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Salem Health executives last week gave a presentation to ease their neighbors’ apprehensions about a proposed rehabilitation center, but the president of the South Central Association of Neighbors said people remain uneasy.

SCAN President Victor Dodier said a particular concern is the fate of Howard Hall, the last building standing on what formerly was the campus of the Oregon School for the Blind. Salem Health executives bought the campus from the state for $6 million in 2010. They demolished all the other buildings, and now want to bulldoze Howard Hall and build on the property a $10 million outpatient rehabilitation center and a $2.8 million parking structure.

However, Cindy Wagner, the hospital’s facilities director, told neighbors at the meeting last week that the 90-year-old building doesn’t have to be leveled; someone just has to find another use for it. Officials are open to suggestions, she said.

“What’s best is an occupied, active space,” Wagner said. “If there’s some way to use Howard Hall, that’s viable too.”

Dodier said hospital executives know that reuse of Howard Hall as a medical facility is unlikely. Some neighbors, he added, thought Wagner was trying to placate them but really set the building up for failure.

“The hospital clearly does not have a use for Howard Hall,” Dodier said. “The question is whether they can find another use for Howard Hall. However, the way they’ve designed the parking minimizes chances for redeveloping the property.”

Wagner showed neighbors a site plan of hospital officials’ proposal, including a therapy garden for children as well as a plaque commemorating the school’s history. However, those plans are not entirely in hospital officials’ hands.

Officials have tried before to demolish the building. Their plans to use part of the campus for a parking lot were denied by the city’s Historic Landmarks Commission two years ago.

Kimberli Fitzgerald, Salem’s senior historic planner, said hospital officials have asked to be placed on the commission’s September agenda with their new proposal to restart the process.

Neighbors’ concerns are many and various, Dodier said.

“It depends on the neighbor really,” he said. “Some neighbors are very concerned about Howard Hall and what will become of the building. They are still unhappy about losing the other buildings. Some neighbors, particularly those adjacent to the property on the west, are more concerned about the transition between the hospital and the historic neighborhood.

“Everyone has traffic in the back in their minds.”

Salem Health officials declined to comment on the proposed development. Nonetheless, they told neighbors it would include a lot of green space and trees so the sprawling hospital campus would not have a negative effect on the neighborhood.

Although neighbors remain skeptical, that was nice to hear, Dodier said.

“It’s all still at a very conceptual level,” he said. “The presentation spoke in terms of retaining trees and doing things within the site to minimize the impact of the project or lightly contour it to keep the lights from the parking from coming out into the neighborhood.”

From that standpoint, he added, it was a good presentation.

“Some of the points that the neighborhood association has made in the past seemed to be addressed,” Dodier said. “One of the most important is still the transition from the hospital space to the neighborhood.”