The meeting was very well attended. A bunch of St. Mary's, Baptist, and Mercy folks were there, including Debra London, the CEO of Mercy, Jerry Askew, the VP for external affairs, and the new CEO of Baptist/St. Mary's downtown (didn't catch his name).

Councilmen Bob Becker and Joe Hultquist attended, as well as City South Waterfront Manager Dave Hill.

A few notes:

1. The Tower Building on the corner of Sevier & Gay will stay; other buildings are subject to demoliton, although the medical office bldgs will be the last to go.
2. They will "try" to keep the chapel also.
3. There is no timetable for demolition; they prefer "sooner rather than later."
4. All inpatient services will move to St. Mary's until the new hospital is built.
5. All outpatient services will stay and will be relocated to the Tower if necessary.
6. All new buildings will have to meet the south waterfront form-based code.
7. They are trying to place as many Baptist employees as possible. All "bedside care providers" (i.e., nurses) are guaranteed positions elsewhere in the system. There is a hiring freeze on hiring from outside until current employees are placed.
8. They feel strongly that the current acreage at Baptist is big enough for their future plans, although they didn't rule out adding some property.
9. They will continue to support Dr. Kim's free clinic.
10. Part of the logic for making the decision now to build the new hospital at the current Baptist location seemed to be to provide some certainty for doctors. Some who would have relocated have decided to stay since the new hospital is coming.
11. All their plans are contingent on regulatory approval and good financial performance. Baptist lost $35M last year and also has a lot of debt, so this is no small matter.

Thanks for the report, Rachel.

Did anyone at the meeting talk about the embedded (embodied) energy of the buildings?

(link...)

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Less is the new More - Karrie Jacobs

or live near it if we don't partake in the celebration.

There is a comment on the KNS site that deed restrictions on the Baptist site require that it be a hospital. Was that mentioned?

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Less is the new More - Karrie Jacobs

From all indications, Mercy doens't have a single plan in place other that how to demolish the site and perhaps make that part of the riverfront more appealing to the riverfront developers.

Can't see the Catholic church preserving a chapel, they'd be hard pressed to do anything but rebuild a small cathedral.

I don't see the genuiness of the discussions, it seems like these are things that are a couple of years away anyway once designs/drawings are in place and the overall plan has a lot more certainty than what buildings will be torn down.

I'm thinking TDEC already has its monitors in the river to guage the silt and dirt fallout from demolition of 12 inch think concrete walls in period construction designed to act as a fall out shelter if needed.

Ain't going to happen. just appeasing the south Knox folks and buying them sometime until the Vertical Wal-Mart deal is finalized.

or it might be a great place for the new Knox County Main Library.

or maybe it is the new site of Universe Knoxville.

or the permanent home of the Knoxville Cat Show (aka The Cat House) since the convenience center is closing due to the opening of the Sevierville
Events Center.

do you people really think they are going to spend over $400,000,000 to build a new hospital… not to even mention the cost to tear down the old hospital?

You won't find any mention of this so called "plan" regarding the decision to build a downtown hospital in any of the Mercy Healthcare Partners financial records nor any of the board's minutes or any of the board's minutes for Mercy Health Partners. Essentially, there is nothing documented about this purported decision to build a downtown hospital other than the press releases and the dog and pony show for the South Knoxville crowd last week.

As the old lady on the Wendy's commercial used to say, "Where's the beef?"

Where's the official records, the projected costs, the management of existing debt on the property, the doctor committments and all of the other "real" things that go into building a new hospital. Are they going to use the old hospital's certificate of need or one it is closed do they need to apply and petition for a new certificate? Don't you think covenant and UT will strongly object to the issuance of a certificate for a new hospital which can be seen from their rooftops? Let's get real and put steel on steel and see if this is a real committment or just more spin which this town has become greatly accustomed to.