A concrete pad the size of a city block in downtown Baltimore marks a change in the University of Maryland Medical Center’s long-planned project and a change in coming health care demands.
The pad on Lombard Street between Greene and Paca streets and the parking garage beneath it will be the only signs, for now, of a $350 million outpatient tower abandoned by the hospital last month in favor of more critical needs.
Hospital officials told The Examiner this week that they have purchased a different lot and will expand the famed R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center and inpatient services.
A recent hospital study found an aging population would require greater intensive and specialty care needs, forcing the hospital to change its plans to meet that more critical need. “The need for impatient beds would be greater than current capacity,” said Jeffrey Rivest, president and chief executive officer of the University of Maryland Medical Center.
Shifting gears
Above a 500-space garage, the hospital had planned to build an eight-story, 500,000-square-foot ambulatory care center that would have combined outpatient services offered across 13 different buildings.
The project was put on hold last fall, though work has continued on the garage component. At the time, the medical system pointed to skyrocketing construction costs and concerns over a lower-than-expected increase in compensations for medical care.
Last month, the University of Maryland Medical System relinquished the key state approval needed to build the outpatient center, according to the Maryland Health Care Commission.
“It was an evolving decision,” said Mark Wasserman, senior vice president of external affairs for the University of Maryland Medical System. “It became clearer and clearer as it moved into the spring that it was going to change, based on the pressures on inpatient services.”
The Medical Center has about 700 beds and averages about 85 percent occupancy, high by industry standards, Rivest said. The hospital’s study found that capacity would be inadequate to meet the demands of aging patients over the next few years, many of whom are funneled toward the medical center and its specialists from around the state.
Hospital building projects can take as long as a decade to complete, Rivest said, and the ambulatory care center had been in the works for between five and seven years when the study was complete.
But with construction costs rising and a fresh look at the hospital’s needs in hand, the hospital decided to make a change.
A vision on paper
To meet the coming demand, the hospital decided to expand its famed Shock Trauma Center. The Medical Center has acquired a small parcel of land on the corner of Lombard and Penn streets, including a small building that headquarters the Maryland Pharmacists Association, Rivest said.
The association is set to move out early next spring and the lot will be incorporated into the hospital’s emergency room and Shock Trauma Center, adding new beds and more than 25 operating rooms between the two. A cost for the project has not been determined, Rivest said.
Though the ambulatory care center project is off the books, its site still serves an important purpose. The hospital-owned garage is an important placeholder for future projects in an area that has seen increased development, including the new Hilton Baltimore just two blocks away. Rivest said.
In the meantime, cars will park on the surface level of the garage site, which will be streetscaped to blend into the surrounding area.
Rivest said that at some point, the concrete foundation already laid at Lombard and Paca will be put use to meet the never-ending demand for more space from many of the hospital’s departments.
“The garage is set to host a building,” Wasserman said. “Having that site sitting there ready for the next phase, that’s an invaluable asset.”
