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Ed Morrison · Med Mart: Clever or stupid?
December 14th, 2009
Over the weekend, the PD editors made another plea for keeping the Med Mart on track.
A good place to start: A business plan that:
clearly outlines the business opportunity in light of intensifying competition (Nashville, New York, Tampa and the heightened competition for medical shows) and shifting market realities (overbuilt convention center market, relatively weak demand and deep discounting); estimates the exposure of the County to continuing operating deficits; and provides enough data to complete a serious economic impact analysis.
We still don’t know how the Med Mart will be more than a showroom for commonplace medical fixtures and standard equipment.
A business plan that clearly outlines the concept would help. In light of Nashville’s med mart project, it also makes sense to understand how Cleveland’s investment will be competitively positioned in the market.
The siting still seems a bit of a mess.
And there are potentially value added education services that might make the Cleveland Med Mart more competitive.
So, for example, take a look at Tampa’s proposed medical training center:
The University of South Florida wants to develop a 60,000 square-foot facility where surgeons from around the world would come for training and certification in various high-tech treatments. Much of the training requires the use of simulators.
Over five years, the Center for Advanced Medical Learning and Simulation and an associated hotel are projected to have a $246 million economic impact, create 204 permanent positions and 636 construction jobs. University officials believe the center would attract medical-device manufacturers and other related businesses to the area, and if so, the number of jobs and the economic impact would more than double.
Medical project could add life to core
In This is Spinal Tap, one of my favorite films, the protagonist laments over the fine line between clever and stupid. Cleveland’s Med Mart has probably crossed the line.
Last 5 posts by Ed Morrison
- Facing the Foreclosure Crisis in Greater Cleveland - July 26th, 2010
- Regenerating urban economies with incubators - July 25th, 2010
- Export NEO - July 25th, 2010
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- Global Cardiovascular Innovation Center - July 24th, 2010
December 14th, 2009 at 10:26 am
Ed, these efforts don’t have to cancel each other out…why do are local architects have such a problem with thinking outside the box?
December 14th, 2009 at 10:27 am
Our local architects…there is a design competition for the lakefront with submissions due this week!
http://realneo.us/events/third-annual-cleveland-design-competition
December 14th, 2009 at 10:30 am
See also:
http://www.brewedfreshdaily.com/2009/put-a-nail-in-rtas-coffin#comment-3807
December 14th, 2009 at 10:47 am
Laura,
I’m not so concerned about the siting issue, since I’m no expert here. I defer to my brother on questions of physical planning. I am much more concerned about the business case for this project.
If the business case turns out to be as confused and garbled as the location decision, Cleveland and Cuyahoga County are in a heap of trouble.
They are moving ahead on a multimillion dollar project without much of an understanding of its upside potential or (more important) its downside risk.
Cheerleading by the newspaper doesn’t help. What Cleveland needs now is a deeper civic exploration of this project.
December 15th, 2009 at 4:28 pm
The city owns both the IX and the metro convention center, they both should have been considered. The Medical Mart should be a tenant and it is not wise to build around that and that alone.
It is also not wise to ignore the IX, it could have been approached as; “all this space” then how to develop and manage it all collectively.
That being to optimize the use of the space through out a calendar year, the rail is and should make it all connected space. Even the IX and it has been mentioned before that the IX should be linked by rail to the airport, it should have a station.
It also could have a commercial rail link and even offer staging for the metro facility within that rail link.
The metro facility could have an intermodal system and receive containers off the adjacent tracks. That’s about lifts that could bring container into the facility. That developed to link to local storage of actual goods, if not manufacturing.
Having an intermodal hub and the airport could link air, rail and road. Then that could link to our port as well as other ports. That’s about making us the center and then building the network that serves the center. Satellites serving us owned or contracted by us.
The metro having a resident medical equipment market as a tenant, but the IX could also have tenants as well and could be also a distribution center for some tenants.
The capitalizing of free trade zones and integrating really good logistics and warehousing and distribution.
What else can be displayed permanently? The IX is huge and it never realized its potential as the largest international exposition center. I have found some timely and huge growth industries, that are seeking market share in the us markets.
We need to be very aggressive to get the displays, but also the products distributing out of the region.
The GCRTA Red Line links but not good enough, what is on it not good enough. That’s about letting people know it is linked and how it all works in synchronicity.
Getting it together will not happen unless it is defined to the all stakeholders. It needs federal funds it needs transportation funding.
The second hub in the metro area, the developing a hub at the IX/airport, then addressing every station between.
It’s about clustering it’s all on rail and subsequently reducing roads, increasing green space and reducing the amount of impermeable surface area. That shifts long term cost off roads and sewers. It shifts it to the alternatives that are greener and much for efficient and in that more sustainable.
Then as a distributing center when economic change it can then short cut back to manufacturing.
If we reduce or maintain our low costs then we can capitalize on that as well, it costs less to live here canwe keep that and make it cleaner and safer then we become the definitive choice.
December 16th, 2009 at 9:10 am
The one big question about the Med Mart: Now that the Commissioners have been “deep sixed”, why not put the Med Mart where it really belongs: as a link between the campuses of the Clinic and UH?
December 18th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
I came to the same conclusion after a couple days of exploring the Clinic complex. There is a VERY strong case to be made that the UH/CCF neighborhood would be the perfect place for Med Mart.
But what would we do about the convention center, which I believe is what all the fuss was about in the first place? Without the Med Mart as a fig leaf to justify the “public investment,” the convention center issue becomes, shall we say, a little easier to evaluate objectively…
December 18th, 2009 at 7:34 pm
The clinics purchasing department is at 17325 Euclid Avenue, they are the people that typically set up the demonstrations with equipment vendors, will they only do that now with those that do not operate space in the med mart?
Some will have to come to Cleveland to see the product they are interested in, apposed to going were?
Some have said that people can go to the Clinic or UH and see the actual products being used? I can assure you that neither will allow that, they are not willing to operate tours to sell medical equipment.
Maybe doctors and head nurses will just swing by on their lunches and shop?
The med mart is nothing but a permanent display, and will be more about sales offices for all the major providers and many of those do not feel they needs or want to be in the same location as their competition.
But it may or could be enough, just saying it exists to attract medical conventions, then they could also attract seminars but that seems to have fizzled since that was the propossed reuse of the public auditorium. Now that just been removed.
You would need multiple elements feeding each other, the showroom is not enough and the convention would feed traffic to it, then so would conferences and seminars.
Its a clinic system that we have locally and the ideal progressive health care model, not one hospital but many across a region…They should merge they should be one linked system and combine all their purchasing and IT systems.
Serving the local community with regional centers and small clinics, they are working on a joint venture with CVS for that. Thats concerning to me, its to commercial for me. However they need a common system to operate under.
We should have one set of medical records and each time a line added, we open the records and then subsequently close them when the line item is resolved.
You would assign your payment method, you would have control of that and the prices and rate regulated on your actual income. But when you go in for care it would be with a card that was used to identify you and your relative dependents. Biometrics used and to track and relate to your permanent health record, you remain anonymous but the events and results are compiled. You would see the diagnostics and treatments and the fees charged, you would be responsible to pay a fee each time a line was created. That fee would be used to manage the system the records system.
That’s about you seeing it, your obligation for health coverage the costs and the methods used to cover it, it should be a percentage of your income up to an amount that meets the market price. The market price is based on the actual efficiency of the network.
That’s about only getting what you need and when you really need it, its about very good diagnostics and very good treatments. The results would come through on each line created as a accumulation of the results.
So an equipment showroom is it about making more money? Actually its about competition and that’s about dealing on prices, why would they come to that? They want to make their pitch alone.
Its still all about making money, it needs to be about building a better mouse trap and for less.
Build a showroom and connect it to the rail, then if the med mart fails others can lease the space next to 300,000.00 sq ft of display area. Its about traffic but what’s wrong is that it may be to small and in city that does not have enough hotels, should be a million sq ft and with a 1000 room hotel.
I could be a manufacturer that wants to sell in the US, I need a distributor I need dealers, not end users. They come to the conventions if that’s who I am after….sometimes the conventions are for distributors and dealers.
We are not qualified are we….we lack a deeper understanding of business.
I would rather see a power sports showroom, medical equipment is so boring. Its all about the big daddy of showrooms and then linking it to the country and the world.