When the backers of Cleveland’s medical mart finally announce the project’s tenants Friday at a ceremonial groundbreaking, savvy observers will scan the list for the identities of big-name “anchor tenants.” The reason is simple: Those anchor tenants will be crucial to the success of the $465-million project by luring buyers who’ll also visit the project’s smaller, lesser-known tenants.

The property development company behind Nashville’s medical mart have reached an agreement with its third tenant, New York-based mdi Consultants Inc.

For Bill Winsor, building a successful medical mart is all about attracting a “critical mass” of healthcare products sellers. In Winsor’s view, his Nashville project has what it takes to create that critical mass, and Cleveland’s competing medical mart doesn’t.

Developers of Nashville’s medical mart project are in the final stages of negotiating leases with 15 new tenants.

Updated 8:00 p.m.A citizens’ group is urging Cuyahoga County to delay the much-anticipated medical mart’s planned October groundbreaking, citing concerns about finances and what it sees as inadequate planning.Citizens Reform Association of Cuyahoga County urged county commissioners to put the project on hold to allow further time to study it, the Plain Dealer reported.MMPI, the [...]

It’s Greg Sanker‘s job to sell Cleveland’s medical mart to the world.Or at least that part of the world that needs to buy into the concept for it to be a success — medical device makers, health information technology vendors, and less-sexy members of the healthcare ecosystem like hospital bed manufacturers. Now that the project [...]

Cuyahoga County has struck a deal to buy the final piece of land needed to assemble the property for Cleveland’s proposed medical mart.The $3.1 million option to purchase the Sportsman Restaurant ends a lengthy process of negotiations and appears to pave the way for groundbreaking to begin in October, as scheduled.The purchase brings to $38 [...]

Score the latest round for Nashville in the race to open the nation’s first medical mart.The Nashville Medical Trade Center has landed the first anchor tenant for its $300 million, 1.5 million square-foot project: health information technology group HIMSS, the Healthcare Information Management Systems Society. In February, the Nashville project’s developers announced an agreement with [...]

The Nashville Medical Trade Center has its first tenant, though it’s not a health products or technology company.It’s Lipscomb University, a Christian liberal arts college that was once known as Nashville Bible School. Lipscomb has signed a memorandum of understanding with the medical mart’s developer to create the National Center for Health Care Education and [...]

Backing off a bit from previous statements about the significance of being first, the chief of the company that’s developing Nashville’s medical mart said attracting a “critical mass” of health-industry tenants would be the decisive factor in securing victory in the three-city medical mart competition.