Mayo Clinic has pulled back on its plans to expand into the Twin Cities, and appears to be doubling down on its commitment to its headquarters 80 miles south in Rochester, Minnesota.
Mayo announced Wednesday that it was going to spend $3.5 billion over 20 years as part of a $6 billion public-private economic development initiative known as Destination Medical Center (DMC) to ensure that Mayo Clinic and Minnesota is the medical destination of choice for people worldwide in the coming decades.
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Mayo’s $3.5 billion expenditure will be tied to capital improvement projects and other private entities will kick in another $2.1 billion. The state and the City of Rochester will contribute $585 million in public infrastructure improvements but those are expected to come from future tax revenue. Billed as the largest economic development initiative in Minnesota’s history, the overall project is expected to create 35,000 to 45,000 jobs over time.
“Ten years from now, there will emerge just a few medical centers with the reputation for health care excellence and patient-focused outcomes that will attract patients from all over the world to their flagship medical center,” said Dr. John Noseworthy, president & CEO of Mayo, in a news release. “Mayo Clinic not only intends to protect its current status as one of the world’s premier medical institutions but to significantly expand our highly-effective practice model and medical assets to be clearly recognized as a global destination medical center for decades to come.”
Mayo recognizes that this goal will not be achieved as long as there remains the “satisfaction gap” between visitors experience at Mayo, and the somewhat less edifying experience of Rochester as a city. Expect Rochester to see better dining, entertainment, lodging, retail and other attractions in Rochester as part of the DMC project.
Mayo Clinic spokesman Karl Oestreich said that the project is also aimed at retaining companies formed out of Mayo intellectual property which have previously chosen to relocate elsewhere. He noted that what is different about the Mayo initiative compared with other public-private economic development initiatives is that the public money is put to work first before it is proved that the project has legs.
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To that end, Noseworthy noted that “this bold economic development initiative is driven on the proof of growth in the private sector and not the promise of growth.”
[Photo Credit: Stethoscope and glass globe from BigStock Photo]
