Mercy Medical Center has towering plans.
The preparations for a new inpatient tower will begin in July, replacing the old one that was constructed in 1958. Featuring more than 235 beds, the new tower will take Mercy?s private rooms capacity from 30 percent to 100 percent, and boost its number of operating rooms from 12 to 15. Estimated to take around $400 million dollars to totally build-out, the new state-of-the-art facility will open late 2010.
“It?s an urban success story in that there are very few community-based hospitals who have the ability to generate revenue to rebuild themselves,” Mercy Hospital President and Chief Executive Officer Tom Mullen said “What we do is meaningful and critical. If you believe in downtown Baltimore, then you will want to see Mercy do well. We benefit the city.”
Financing for the tower will be a threefold plan: a $250 million bond sale, $150 million raised in cash opportunities and $43 million from a new Capital Campaign. Mullen and other Mercy executives cited reasons such as a lack of private rooms, inability to adapt to modern technology and an outdated design from the 1950s as reasons for the development.
The new tower will feature a green roof, the latest in operating-room technology, a preplanned parking facility and a two-story lobby with customer service amenities. Impacts from the tower are estimated to be wide-ranging. The tower will create nearly 1,000 new jobs, while generating about $123.5 million in economic impact.”The expansion of Mercy Medical Center will continue to attract even more people to downtown and in addition, the hospital continues to serve more and more people outside of Baltimore,” Downtown Partnership President J. Kirby Fowler said. “Mercy is a very strong anchor of City Center and we are pleased to see it will continue thriving into the next century.”
Mercyhas received approval from the state for its Certificate of Need to build the tower and is expecting similar results when it receives a final ruling from the City Planning Council.
