Swedish Medical Center in Issaquah easily gained approval of its plan to expand at the Nov. 18 Issaquah city council meeting.

There has been no negative public comment or objection to the hospital expanding its campus in the Issaquah Highlands since the process started. The new agreement affects the north 10 acres of the 28-acre campus.

The city removed Swedish from the Highlands development agreement, and created a new 20-year agreement with Swedish.

“Swedish has been a great addition to our community,” said council member Stacy Goodman.

Council member Josh Schaer said the absence of any public comment speaks to the fact that this is a solid proposal.

Chuck Salmon, Swedish’s CEO for the Issaquah campus and ambulatory care centers in Mill Creek and Redmond, said the organization just hired an architect to create a master use plan for the parcel, which is required by the city.

Salmon said of the 10 acres, 530,000 square feet is developable space they can use. Eventually there could be upward of three new buildings he said, but for now a second medical/professional building is in the plan which will somehow be connected to the hospital and existing medical building.

“We’ll have some sort of skybridge or other way to move pedestrians,” he said.

Swedish is required to have 10,000 square feet of community space, which Salmon said gives them the opportunity to be creative. More retail shops could be incorporated into the new building, linked to medical and health care needs he said. Public transit accessibility has also been taken into consideration.

Salmon is retiring at the end of Feb. 2014, but he said working on the Issaquah project has been “the icing on the cake” to his 42-year career.