Doubt grows about survival of Nashville medical mart

Nashville locals are beginning to publicly express frustration about the slow (or nonexistent) progress in […]

Nashville locals are beginning to publicly express frustration about the slow (or nonexistent) progress in recent months on the city’s medical mart project.

The chief of one of the Nashville area’s largest commercial real estate firms proclaimed the project “dead in the water” when he was speaking as a panelist at a local real estate forum, the Nashville Business Journal reported.

“There’s nothing going on,” said Doug Brandon of Cassidy Turley. “I’ve talked to a lot of people in Dallas that have been very involved in it and there is no activity from the investor side over there right now as far as moving that project forward that I know of.”

Dallas-based Market Center Management is the property developer behind the Nashville Medical Trade Center.

Market Center Management CEO Bill Winsor told the Business Journal that reports of the project’s demise have been greatly exaggerated.

“The project has leases or commitments for more than 40 percent of the facility,” Winsor said. “We still plan to reach the goal of 60 percent preleased before we finalize financing for the project, and we are close to reaching that goal.”

This is the second time in recent months that Nashville medical mart officials have been forced to beat back rumors of the project’s failure. In late February, Cleveland Scene reported that “sources on the ground” indicated that the project was dead, a rumor that Market Center quickly shot down.

Of course, those are exactly the type of rumors that officials with Cleveland’s competing medical mart project love to hear, even if they won’t admit it. Leaders with each of the two projects – in particular those associated with Nashville – have sought to downplay competition between the two, but most observers aren’t buying that.

Because a medical mart, a collection of showrooms for medical technology products, or just about anything that’s used in a hospital, is a largely untested concept, leaders of both projects have been grappling with a huge challenge – convincing skeptical potential customers that the medical mart concept is viable and worth taking a leap of faith on. Both projects seem to be struggling with that.

Cleveland has had a huge advantage in moving forward with its medical mart because the project is publicly financed. Nashville must rely on private financing, and project leaders say they need to obtain signed leases for 60 percent of the mart’s 1 million square feet before they can secure that financing.

Cleveland’s $465 million medical mart project is scheduled to be completed on Aug. 31, 2013.

Nashville has signed just six tenants, and none since August. If project leaders don’t start signing more in a hurry, more and more people will begin assuming the persistent rumors of the project’s death are true.

 

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