From the OCT/NOV 2006 issue of New Urban News

Remaking America’s medical districts: a challenge for NU

Philip Langdon

 Prakash Patel, Courtesy of Bon Secours Richmond Hospital
It’s hard to think of any city in the US that has made its medical district a place where people really want to be. Even though medicine and health care are the nation’s biggest growth industry, accounting for 16 percent of America’s gross domestic product, and even though 1.7 million jobs have been created in this field since 2001 — more than in any other sector of the US economy — there have been few efforts to capitalize on the urban design potential of hospitals and health-related institutions.
That may finally be starting to change. In Miami and Memphis, planners, designers, and local institutions are looking at turning medical areas into congenial, pedestrian-friendly mixed-use districts — places where people of varied income levels would be comfortable living and spending leisure time.
This incipient trend could give cities some dynamic, job-rich neighborhoods that would attract people from throughout the metropolitan region. The strategy borrows from efforts that universities — most notably the University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia — have undertaken in recent years, upgrading the urbanistic qualities of areas surrounding their campuses.
Memphis is in the tentative first stage of what could be a transformation of its medical area (see story on page 10). Miami is much further along. The city has hired EDAW to devise a plan for a one-square-mile area that contains the University of Miami medical school, three major hospitals, and other health-related entities, as well as courts, social services, a community college, a jail, and a produce market. The district, about two miles northwest of downtown, had been known as the Civic Center, but a coalition of interested parties recently renamed it the “Miami Health District” to trumpet its new identity.
“The university and the city got together and realized this area had endless research potential,” said Betty Fleming, special projects manager in the University of Miami’s office of real estate, campus planning, and construction. The university hopes, over a period of several years, to put up 3 million square feet of construction in eight buildings. This includes a 336,000-square-foot clinical research building that was just completed, a Biomedical Research Institute now being built, a future hospital expansion, and various laboratories. Together, the projects would generate thousands of jobs.
A key goal is creation of a more appealing public environment. “We see an opportunity to bring in some retail at pedestrian level,” said Sergio Rodriguez, UM’s vice president for real estate and facilities. “We want to have sidewalk cafes, little restaurants, and stores, like Kinko’s, to bring some life to the streets.” Activity centers such as cafeterias that are now practically invisible, hidden in the cores of buildings, could be moved close to the sidewalks “to make the area more livable,” he said.
Like medical districts in many cities, Miami’s Health District is short of stores, restaurants, and other businesses that make the streetside experience interesting. “We’re underserved by retail,” Fleming acknowledged. “What we have is pathetic.” However, with nearly 30,000 employees in the district, plus 60,000 to 70,000 other people visiting each day, the potential exists to support a lively array of commerce.
The produce market, which currently serves only as a wholesale distribution center, active from midnight to about 10 AM, could be expanded on the model of Pike Place Market in Seattle — becoming a retail destination for city residents and others, Rodriguez said. He envisions people going there to enjoy meals and drinks, buy food to take home, and do other kinds of shopping.
As its part of the upgrading, city leaders are promising better transportation, new or improved landscaping, sidewalk repairs, and better signs. “It’s easy to get lost in there now,” Jose Gonzalez, the city’s assistant transportation coordinator, said of the district. “We will change the configuration” of streets and traffic, he said. “We want to make the streets more walkable and establish multi-use paths where people can walk or jog.”
“We have a proposed route and locations for a tram,” Gonzalez said, although money to install it has not yet been obtained. A streetcar is also being planned, to run from downtown to midtown. Institutions hope to create gateways that would help visitors to orient themselves and find various destinations.
The city rezoned the area to allow a higher density of development. “Already, residential and commercial developers are targeting the area,” The Miami Herald reported in August. “We want all levels of housing, not just the upper middle class,” Rodriguez emphasized. Workforce housing is part of the goal.

ORIGINS OF THE PLAN
A quick first attempt at producing a master plan for the district was conducted by EDAW, an international design and planning firm, in 2002 when the firm had summer interns from all over the world work in Miami for two weeks on ideas for making the district a good place to live, work, and play, said Donald Shockey, project manager in EDAW’s Miami Beach office. “It’s a project that lacked a champion until the Miami Partnership was formed.” The Partnership, a private-public organization with Mayor Manny Diaz and UM President Donna Shalala as its leaders, came into being in 2004. A variety of entities, including schools, hospitals, judicial centers, businesses, and neighborhood associations, have joined the Partnership. Part of its role is to oversee the district’s redevelopment.
Last fall Professor Joanna Lombard led a student design studio at the UM School of Architecture that generated ideas, many of them rooted in New Urbanism, on how the district could evolve. The students recommended such things as introducing greater connectivity through smaller, walkable blocks and an enhanced streetscape; nurturing a 24-hour community by adding residential, retail, commercial, office, and institutional support space; and improving the district’s comfort and accessibility for patients, visitors, staff, and others. They proposed live/work units to enliven the streetscape, and called for parking garages to have liner buildings on their perimeter. Recent buildings in the district had often not made their lower levels engaging, Rodriguez said. The students’ project has helped draw attention to the quality of the pedestrian experience.
Following the example of what Penn has accomplished in the past decade in its part of West Philadelphia, the Partnership is looking not only at economic and design factors but also at other important urban issues, such as the need to improve public schools in the vicinity. A charter or magnet school may be proposed.
One of the benefits expected from a convivial, multi-purpose Health District is a more highly-rated medical school — one that can attract top talent. “President Shalala wants to put the medical school in the top 20 nationally,” Fleming said. A better environment may help the medical school’s recruiting.

This article is available in the October/November 2006 issue of New Urban News, along with images and many more articles not available online. Subscribe or order the individual issue.