The shiny new building on the northwest corner of Old Spanish Trail and Cambridge St. south of the Texas Medical Center that the Baylor College of Medicine built but then let sit as an empty shell for nearly 4 years will soon be filled with hospital beds, the institution announced today. And the complex will eventually become the new home of the successor to the Texas Medical Center’s St. Luke’s Hospital. Catholic Health Initiatives, which has its headquarters in Denver, bought the entire St. Luke’s Episcopal Health System last May for $2 billion; a new nonprofit joint venture between CHI St. Luke’s Health and Baylor will operate the new 250-bed hospital, which will be inserted into the structure’s vacant floors by next spring and bear the unwieldy name of Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center McNair Campus.
The same joint venture will also run the existing 850-bed St. Luke’s hospital on Bertner Ave., now conveniently known as the Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center TMC. But that Texas Medical Center institution appears to be going south: A yet-to-be-created master plan and timeline will guide the eventual replacement of that facility — it’ll move south of Brays Bayou to the McNair Campus, which is outside the official boundaries of the Texas Medical Center:
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To accommodate that move, Baylor St. Luke’s will need to build additional structures; unconstructed but planned-for tower appendages to the existing building will hold an additional 400 beds.
Baylor began construction of the 11-story building and parking garage at 7200 Cambridge St. way back in 2007, after the independent medical college’s affiliations with Methodist Hospital and St. Luke’s foundered. By 2009, however, it had run out of money. The shell of the building was completed in March 2010, just a couple of months after a long-considered merger with Rice University was pronounced dead. It sat vacant until just a couple of months ago, when a Baylor-operated outpatient facility moved into a single floor.
- Bold new alliance among Houston’s leading health care providers to transform care delivery in the region [BCM]
- FAQ on Baylor, CHI non-profit joint venture [BCM]
- St. Luke’s sale a ‘done deal‘ [Houston Business Journal]
- Previously on Swamplot: Baylor Hospital: Internal Organ Failure
Photos: Baylor College of Medicine
Another business moves to the suburbs!
Just goes to show how egos can get very expensive.
I wonder if any of this move outside the TMC boundaries has to due with the land covenants that say all occupants within the TMC must be non-profit? I am fully aware that both Baylor and CHI are currently non-profit institutions, but I wonder if a for-profit subsidiary is on the horizon?
How very ecumenical. Still, I’d like to see the business plan.
I have been trying to apply for the new Baylor Hospital. I wish I can work at the new hospital.
I want to be part of this hospital, and I have been trying to apply .