Wednesday, June 30, 2010 - TOM WILEMON -

The Daily News -

The new Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital has embraced the effort to inter-connect the Downtown medical district with a cohesive streetscape, common signage and pedestrian-friendly environment.

It is the starting point for an effort to better link the hospitals, educational institutions and other anchors of the Memphis Medical Center. The University of Tennessee Health Science Center is also exploring ways to better connect with the district.

The Memphis Medical Center is an economic engine for the city that employs thousands of healthcare and biotechnology workers. About $1.5 billion is being invested in new developments within its boundaries.

But few people recognize it as a place. There are no visual symbols, sculptural elements or landscaping features linking its anchors.

The district’s logo will be included on the hospital’s signage along with the wording “A Member of the Memphis Medical Center.” Le Bonheur is also working closely with the city and the Memphis Medical Center to improve safety and access for people crossing Poplar Avenue.

“It is important the medical district in the Memphis be identified as an area that has a significant economic impact on the city,” said David Rosenbaum, vice president of facility management for Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare.

Tetra Tech is the firm chosen by the Memphis Medical Center Streetscape Committee to design the streetscape plans and safety elements. The project is being financed with about $4 million in federal funds.

Memphis has a thriving Downtown medical economy, but does not do as good a job as other cities at visually showcasing the district, said Beth Flanagan, the director of the Memphis Medical Center.

But the most pressing order of business is to improve safety for people crossing Poplar Avenue to and from the new $340 million children’s hospital. State-of-the-art pedestrian crossings are needed at the busy thoroughfare’s intersections with Dunlap Street and Avery Street.

Two Le Bonheur employees have already been struck by an automobile while crossing Poplar Avenue from a designated hospital parking lot, Rosenbaum said. Families, many of whom will not be accustomed to navigating through urban traffic, will also be crossing Poplar when the FedEx Family House is built. The house will provide housing for families of patients receiving extended care.

The current plans call for an at-grade crossing, Flanagan said, because studies have shown that people still cross streets even when pedestrian bridges are provided. She has something more in mind that a striping and a signal light.

“Think about when you are crossing a street in Washington, D.C., and some other cities,” Flanagan said. “You have count-down signals. You have very specific information.”

The Memphis Medical Center stretches diagonally with a wide berth from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital at the northwest edge of Downtown to the intersection of Lamar and South Cleveland avenues at the southwest corner of Midtown.

It encompasses four hospitals, the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, three other medical teaching institutions, biotechnology firms, numerous medical offices and several residential areas.

New projects totaling $1.5 billion are under construction, been completed or are in the planning phases.

The next big construction project on the horizon is a $49 million translational research building on the UTHSC campus. Ken Brown, executive vice chancellor for UTHSC, said the architectural firm TRO/Jung is drawing up plans for the center, which could go out for construction bids by the end of the year.

There is also a $4 million appropriation in federal funding that would pay for the demolition of three existing buildings on campus to make way for future development. The Beale Building (an old bus barn just east of Office Depot), Randolph Hall at 790 Madison Ave. and the Feurt Pharmacy Research Bulding at 26 S. Dunlap St. would be demolished.

UTHSC is also in negotiations to buy the Scottish Rite building, which is adjacent to the old bus barn. Brown said the university would like to build a new clinical primary care center at the site, where medical students studying different disciplines could work in a common area.

The other cleared sites would make room for expansions of the General Education Building and the Student-Alumni Center.

Brown said the demolition money is an add-on in a bill that is contingent on federal funding being approved.

“We do believe that will come to fruition,” he said. “There really wasn’t any capital appropriation. The new research building is an institutionally funded project.”

The federal money is crucial for future expansion plans because the state of Tennessee has not in the past provided money for demolitions, he said.

“I think the campus, in spite of all the economic uncertainty that we are dealing with, our future is probably as optimistic as it has ever been,” Brown said.

The campus covers about 23 acres and encompasses 40 buildings with almost 2 million square feet of space.

However, most motorists who pass through it on Madison Avenue or Union Avenue never realize there are on university grounds.

Brown said the university needs to do a better job of designating its own space and connecting with the Memphis Medical Center.

“If Downtown wants to grow, it will have to grow in this direction,” Brown said. “We would like for the university to be a seamless part of the downtown growth towards the east.”

Flanagan said more landscaping would make the district more visually appealing but irrigation systems are necessary for that to happen.

“The St. Louis medical center has done some creative things,” she said. “They have these beautiful hanging baskets on the light fixtures, but hey have a drip coming through the fixtures into those baskets.”

The Memphis Medical Center is also working closely with residential neighborhoods in the district to improve quality of life and amenities, she said.

“How do we create a sense of place and begin to weave it together,” she said. “Most people locally don’t understand how much activity goes on here, how many employees are here and what an economic engine this is for the city. We’ve got to start to tell that story.”