Baptist Footprint Grows Ever Larger Downtown

The Daily News
December 19, 2007
By Scott Shepard

When the 19-story Baptist Medical Center was imploded two years ago, it marked the departure of Baptist Memorial Hospital from Downtown, at least in the minds of many.

But Baptist Memorial Health Care Corp. continues to have a major presence in the neighborhood, with long-term plans that might even include an expansion of clinical care.

"The hospital was such a formidable symbol that when it came down it seemed to erase Baptist from the area," said Steve Bares, president of Memphis Bioworks Foundation. "But Baptist continues to be one of the biggest landowners in (the medical district), and I fully expect them to continue to be part of the central city."

Downtown mainstay

Baptist in 2001 donated the hospital and a host of surrounding buildings to the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in a gift valued at $40 million - the single largest gift to UTHSC in its history. Bioworks took down the hospital to make way for a complex of research facilities dubbed the UT-Baptist Research Park. Bares estimates the project will take another 10 years to complete, create 5,000 jobs and produce a $2 billion annual economic impact.

"Baptist has been, is and always will be a major presence in the Medical Center area," said Scott Fountain, senior vice president and chief development officer of Baptist. Fountain quips that Baptist has donated property where it now pays rent.

"We're actively engaged in the Medical Center and have been since 1912," said William Tuttle, vice president of planning for Baptist. "Since 1912 we've provided tangible services, the hospital just being one of those settings."

Baptist's current role in the biotech park, he said, is as a catalyst. Baptist paid $300,000 for three years of naming rights of the Baptist Musculoskeletal Biologics Laboratory, part of the InMotion Musculoskeletal Institute. InMotion was formed to recruit biotech talent to Memphis. Baptist intends to continue sponsoring the lab when it is moved to the yet-to-be-built Bioworks Phase I building of the UT-Baptist Research Park, due to open in 2009 at the corner of Dudley Street and Union Avenue.

Baptist is also a joint-venture partner with chief rival Methodist Healthcare Inc., in the ambulatory surgery center at Hamilton Eye Institute. That's housed in the 930 Madison Ave. building, which Baptist built in 1991 as part of a $70 million effort to keep the area the center of its business. Ophthalmologist Barrett Haik and his team raised more than $60 million to renovate the place into an integrated eye center for teaching, research and clinical care.

Strategic acquisitions

In 1997 Baptist merged with the struggling St. Joseph Hospital, integrating its employees and transferring the real estate to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Today St. Jude is halfway into a 10-year, $1 billion expansion, putting the old St. Joe land to a new use.

Baptist acquired what was once a Schilling Lincoln-Mercury dealership on Union and developed it into a fitness center. Today it's known as the Hope and Healing Center, which the Church Health Center leases from Baptist for $1 a year.

"The Baptist Operation Outreach health care van brings primary health care services to the homeless community of Downtown and Midtown Memphis four days a week," Fountain said. "About 90 percent of those patients are uninsured and 80 percent have received free medication on-site."

Baptist also supports another urban health project, Christ Community Health Services, financially as well as with equipment donations.

"When you step back and look at the Medical Center, you can see that Baptist has led the transformation in many ways," Tuttle says. "In research, timely breakthroughs will ultimately end up providing better patient care, and we see that taking place in collaboration with various researchers; our involvement in research is part of our future."

Playing the field

Perhaps the most intriguing property in Baptist's Downtown portfolio is a surface parking lot with a parking garage at the south side. Originally it provided parking for hospital employees, and now it's used by students of Baptist College of Health Sciences and Southwest Tennessee Community College.

When Baptist donated the property in 2001, that square block of asphalt directly across Union from the Research Park was notably not part of the gift. There are no secret plans for the land, Tuttle said, but it was held back for strategic reasons. In the mid-1970s Baptist acquired 65 acres on Poplar in Germantown, figuring it might be a good place for a future hospital. After analyzing population trends, Baptist sold the land to Germantown Baptist Church and proceeded to build on Walnut Grove in East Memphis.

Baptist today owns 50 acres in Munford, with frontage on U.S. 51, and last year bought 60 acres near Arlington off Interstate 40 and Airline Road.

"We are fortunate enough to be able to acquire land and hold onto it for our long-term future," he said. "The Medical Center is one of those areas where we want to keep our options open."