The University of Maryland Medical System dropped plans to build a $350 million hospital expansion in downtown Baltimore, state and hospital officials said Tuesday.
UMMS officials Aug. 18 relinquished a key state certificate signing off on the eight-story ambulatory care center, said Pam Barclay, spokeswoman for the Maryland Health Care Commission, which regulates hospital building projects.
Medical system spokeswoman Joan Shnipper said in a statement the project was slow to develop despite the system’s overall growth in the last few years.
“Now we forecast a more immediate need for Shock Trauma expansion, emergency services and acute bed capacity,” she said. “Consequently, we have reordered our long term facilities plan priorities to focus on these more immediate needs over the next three to five years. The [ambulatory care center] project will follow in a five- to 10-year horizon.”
Two days after plans were shelved, UMMS board Chairman John Erickson resigned following a board meeting. While he said in a statement that he had been considering leaving for several weeks, media reports cited disagreements with the board over several issues, and a split between UMMS and the University of Maryland School of Medicine, which would have staffed the facility.
Michael Busch, a UMMS board member and also speaker of the House of Delegates, took over chairmanship and could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
The 535,000-square-foot center, scheduled to open in 2011, would have combined outpatient services offered across 13 campus buildings.
Barclay said the state was in line to contribute more than $125 million to the project, one of the larger hospital projects under way in Maryland. She said it’s not known how much was actually spent for what was completed, and the commission has asked UMMS for a full accounting of funds spent.
A 500-car parking garage was the only part of the project actually built before construction was halted last year. At the time, UMMS officials blamed rising construction costs and lower-than-expected increases in reimbursements to hospitals for their care.
“The current economic circumstances, and the changing dynamics of health care, complicate these kind of developments,” said Don Fry, president and chief executive officer of the Greater Baltimore Committee.
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