While Nashville is slowly drying out from a devastating flood that forced the Healthcare Financial Management Association to move its annual conference, developers are moving forward with plans to open a medical trade center that could attract healthcare vendors and generate an estimated $390 million a year in business.
Dallas-based Market Center Management recently announced the second tenant for the proposed Nashville Medical Trade Center – the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, which is leasing 25,000 square feet of the 11-floor structure. The trade center will be built in and atop the existing 22-year-old Nashville Convention Center.
"A permanent, year-round destination for HIT activity and innovation would only be possible inside this groundbreaking marketplace," HIMSS CEO H. Stephen Lieber said during an April press conference. "By joining the trade center we are able to reach more participants, demonstrate meaningful use more completely and offer more flexibility than ever before."
Lieber said the site could serve as the permanent home for the HIMSS Interoperability Showcase, which is set up at each year’s HIMSS conference and exhibition.
"It's a great opportunity for us to take something we can do only once a year, and do it year-round," he said. "The concept here is that it gives us the ability to reach an audience we wouldn't ordinarily reach."
"HIMSS' presence at the Nashville Medical Trade Center makes this project a world showcase for the latest trends in medical care," said Matt Kisber, commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development, who estimated 300 to 350 companies will occupy the center when it’s completed.
Earlier this year, trade center officials announced that Lipscomb University, a Nashville-based liberal arts school, would lease space for a healthcare business incubation center. And CEO Bill Winsor has said at least 25 companies have expressed interest.
Trade center officials have also launched a leasing section on their Web site that includes specifications on floors five through 11, where healthcare companies will be able to rent showroom space for as low as $35 a square foot. The lower floors will house an education and conference center, registration and visitor services and exhibition and meeting space.
The $250 million, 1.5 million-square-foot Nashville Medical Trade Center, slated to open in 2013, is the third of its kind to pop up on planning tables around the country.
The publicly financed, $425 million Cleveland Medical Mart & Convention Center is moving closer to fruition, with a groundbreaking planned for October and doors slated to open in 2013, but Cuyahoga County, Ohio officials and their private partner, Chicago-based MMPI, haven’t released a floor plan or leasing details. Officials in New York, meanwhile, are touting the proposed World Product Centre, though they haven’t found an appropriate location yet for the project. They have said they would like to open a center in leased space as early as next year.
Nashville officials have said Market Center Management must lease 60 percent to 70 percent of the trade center to secure financing for the project, which also involves remodeling and expanding the Nashville Convention Center, which sits next to the 673-room Renaissance Nashville Hotel. Market Center Management is negotiating a master lease with the city to take over the entire convention center once the new Music City Center is built.