http://www.tradeshowweek.com/index.a...leid=CA6661244
Nashville Has Med Mart Dreams Too
By Michael Hart
06/01/2009
On the very day officials at Positively Cleveland and Merchandise Mart Properties Inc. thought they could breathe a sigh of relief, they had something else to worry about.
On May 18, after four years of preparation, the Cleveland City Council gave its final approval for the Cleveland Medical Mart, which will include a 300,000 square foot convention center.
However, just hours before the council action came word that Dallas-based Market Center Management had its own plans for a medical mart, a 1.5 million square foot facility that would include meeting space for health care events, in Nashville, Tenn.
What's more, Market Center Management President and CEO Bill Winsor threw down the gauntlet, stating, “There is only room for one of these medical marts, and it's going to be ours.”
Winsor said his company is looking at three buildings in downtown Nashville as options for a medical mart that will include permanent and temporary space for medical equipment suppliers, as well as meeting space in which health care groups can conduct continuing medical education sessions.
He also said he expects to eventually take advantage of the proposed Music City Center, a 525,000 sq. ft. convention center scheduled for completion in 2013.
In the meantime, however, Winsor said the Nashville medical mart will be open and available for tenants in just more than a year, before the Cleveland Medical Mart.
“We're going to be using an existing structure, so we will be able to open in July 2010,” Winsor said. “Speed to market is important here.”
Not so fast, said Merchandise Mart Properties Inc. Senior Vice President Mark Falanga.
“We don't take this as a serious threat,” Falanga said of the Nashville project.
He added he was skeptical because the Market Center Management's proposal had neither a definite funding source nor a site.
“For a company that has never done anything like this before (and) has no site and no funding, we put it in the category of 'let's see what happens,'” Falanga said.
On the other hand, he added, MMPI had been preparing for a groundbreaking on the Cleveland project that could come in a matter of weeks.
“We started contemplating this in May 2005,” Falanga said. “Over those four years, we've heard about similar concepts in New York City; Orlando; Denver; Rochester, Minn.; and now Nashville. Not one has come to fruition.”
Falanga also pointed out that, with the Cleveland Medical Mart, the first stage of construction would include the renovation of the current Cleveland Convention Center's Public Auditorium into conference and tradeshow space, which can be done quite quickly.
“Our expectation is that, within a year, we'll be up and running,” Falanga said.
In other words, it should be ready at about the same time Winsor said the first phase of his Nashville project would be ready.
Winsor said he secured funding for the Nashville proposal from Market Center Management's parent company, Crow Holdings.
MMPI in Cleveland and Market Center Management in Nashville are not the only two real estate developers who have come up with the idea of a facility that would include exhibition and meeting space for health care groups and both permanent and temporary display space for medical device and, possibly, pharmaceutical makers.
Nearly a year ago, New York-based World Product Centre and Extell Development announced they planned to build what spokespeople said was a $1 billion, 60-story medical mart on West 33rd Street in New York, near the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center.
Last summer, World Product Centre Executive Vice President Michael Resnick said he had signed an agreement with the Greater New York Hospital Assn. to help in marketing the concept. Since then, World Product Centre officials have said only that plans were still in progress.
Meanwhile, Cleveland's project has been working its way through negotiations between local government officials and MMPI for several years. A sales tax to pay for the construction of what will likely be a $425 million project has been in place for nearly two years. Along with the new convention center, to be built on the site of the existing, but aging, Cleveland Convention Center, will be a four-story 100,000 sq. ft. medical mart with permanent showroom space.
The renovated Public Auditorium will have 30,000 sq. ft. of exhibit space for conferences and small tradeshows.
The decision by the Cleveland City Council to approve the sale of the property for the convention center and medical mart was the last hoop MMPI needed to jump through before beginning construction.
Winsor said not only can his company get the medical mart and at least as much exhibit and meeting space ready in Nashville as MMPI is talking about in Cleveland in place within a year, but also the mid-Tennessee location is preferable because of the health care infrastructure already in place.
The Nashville Health Care Council, a consortium of health care firms in the area (prominent among which is Vanderbilt University), has 350 members, Winsor said.
“It's become a significant part of their economy,” he added.
Dr. Harry R. Jacobson, Vanderbilt vice chancellor for health affairs, said, “The medical trade center concept has been discussed in several cities over the years, but is best suited for Nashville given the expansive health care institutions. The infrastructure and organizations already in place in this region will … support this project.”
Cleveland is home to the Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals of Cleveland, Case Western Reserve University and their affiliated research facilities.
Prev
:texans:
Linear Mode
