Detroit gets its share of bad press. But the big investments that companies are pouring into the Midwest city don’t receive as much attention.
And that’s a shame.
Take, for instance, the work that Chicago-based Jones Lang LaSalle is doing for the Detroit Medical Center’s new heart hospital in the city’s midtown area. The company broke ground on a $78 million five-story advanced cardiovascular care center on Feb. 14, a center that Detroit city officials expect to serve as a boost to midtown.
For one thing, it will provide the most advanced medical care to residents in both Detroit’s urban and suburban areas. That’s because the center is expected to draw top doctors from across the country to the Detroit hospital.
And in more good news for the city, the heart hospital is part of an even bigger project, an $850 million investment in the Detroit Medical Center by Vanguard Health System.
It’s obvious that this project is an important one for the city of Detroit, one that will bring jobs both during the construction phase and once the medical center opens.
“This project is huge for the city,” said Andrea Burg, project manager for Jones Lang LaSalle. “The hospital has committed to its Midtown community. Detroit Medical Center wants to address its urban commuinty and provide healthcare to that community. It’s a major investment in that area.”
Jones Lang LaSalle is serving as the program manager directing the development on behalf of Detroit Medical Center. Harley Ellis Devereaux provided design services for the hospital, while Jenkins/Skankais is the project’s construction manager.
The new cardiovascular facility will add four new operating tables for Detroit Medical Center’s Cardio Team One, its top team of cardiologists. Each patient area was built on a larger scale to accommodate bariatric patients, a group of patients currently underserved in the existing medical center.
Nurses, doctors and clinical personnel participated in half-day focus groups to share their ideas with the additon’s design team. Medical staffers, for example, suggested replacing the hospital’s pod-centric care system with a more linear layout. This new layout will allow nurses to monitor a larger number of patients more effectively. The linear layout will also lower to 45 minutes the average time it takes a patient to travel from the additon’s door to the catherization area. That’s a big drop from the national average of 75 minutes.
“The big deal in terms of cardiology is how fast you can get people if they are suffering a heart attack or a blockage to the table,” Burg said. “We wanted to figure out how to manage that in the best way for the doctors.”
To make this project a reality, the Detroit Medical Center negotiated tax incentives from the city of Detroit in exchange for employing city residents during the development process. According to the agreement between the city and hospital, 30 percent to 40 percent of construction workers for the project must come from Wayne County, a county that is mostly made up of Detroit. Jones Lang LaSalle estimates that 250 laborers will be employed on the construction site.
These are the projects that are fun to promote. It’s just too bad that they don’t receive more exposure than they do.
