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The plans are ambitious.

On one side of University Avenue, St. Vincent is locked into a $40 million expansion project that when completed will be a four-level facility and include a 19,000-square-foot emergency department.

The project calls for more than just a new emergency department. Also in the works are upgrades to patient rooms and changes to the Jack Stephens Heart Center, with a new cardiovascular intensive care unit. The orthopedic center will feature two new surgical suites and four additional general surgical suites. The anticipated completion date for the construction is April 19, 2009.

"When I arrived here, I heard people say that University and Markham was maybe the most recognizable intersection in the state of Arkansas," said Ken Haynes, the interim CEO of St. Vincent. "And I think it is just a continuation of what has happened at this corner."

Of course, when St. Vincent opened in 1954, University wasn't University. "It was called Hayes then," Haynes said, "and it was a gravel road."

Directly across from St. Vincent and on the other side of University Avenue sits University Mall, a Simon-leased property that covers 27 acres and can only be described as decaying.

But maybe not for long since Simon also announced an ambitious redevelopment that would completely take down the existing structure and for all intents and purposes start over.

The project would include a healthcare component: a medical office tower building—a first for Simon, which has 286 properties around the country.

"We might have doctors that are currently leasing space from us," said Simon spokesman Les Morris, "but this is the first time we are looking at constructing medical office space."

A rendering of the planned development showed a six-story building that would face University Avenue and would possibly be connected to the St. Vincent property by a sky bridge.

"With the traffic flow on University and Markham, there would need to be some kind of connector," Morris said. "You couldn't have people trying to cross the street. We met with St. Vincent and they are very supportive of this idea."

Also in the mix would be sky bridges that would connect all four corners of University and Markham. The bridges would be similar to intersections in Las Vegas, where escalators take people up to the bridges and they then walk across to another escalator that takes them down. It also makes sense to connect the four corners with Park Plaza Mall and the new Midtown shopping center on the northern corners, and with St. Vincent and the proposed new development occupying the southern corners.

But the planned development isn't just a new mall; it's truly mixed use. In addition to the medical tower, residential towers are also in the plans and the commercial property would include at least one big box retailer (most likely a Target), a bookstore, a coffee shop, restaurants and smaller retailers.

The key word is "planned." Simon and the property owners, Patton Family Limited Partnership of Little Rock and Southern Real Estate & Financial Co., are tied up in court over the current condition of the property.

Morris said the project hinged on the litigation, and added that if the case could be settled, construction would start this year and that the project would be done in phases, so the medical tower could be finished before the retail property was finished.




February 2007

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