Frisco Texas Residential

City's rapid population growth provides impetus for projects

City's rapid population growth provides impetus for projects

Before Frisco Medical Center opened in 2002, the city had no hospitals of its own and patients had to travel to other cities. Now, the surgical hospital is doubling its capacity in two separate projects together costing $57 million.

The expansion of the hospital together with Frisco-based LandPlan Development Corp.'s plans for a 250-acre, mixed-use medical campus directly across Warren Parkway from the hospital, are the latest examples of the fevered growth of medical services in Frisco.

Centennial Medical Center, which is owned by Tenet Healthcare Corp., opened in summer 2004 and is located about 4.5 miles from the planned development. HCA Inc. is planning developments on about 90 to 100 acres adjacent to the LandPlan property, including a medical office building.

"With all the growth out there I'm not surprised," said John Gavras, president and CEO of the Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council, a nonprofit association of Metroplex hospitals.

Work has already begun on the expansion of Frisco Medical Center, south of the LandPlan development on Warren Parkway, near the Dallas North Tollway. The hospital is owned by Baylor Health Care System, United Surgical Partners International Inc. and a group of area physicians.

Under way

The 63,000-square-foot hospital expansion will cost $40 million while a new, 84,000-square-foot office building will cost $17 million. LandPlan is handling the new office building. The entire project is expected to be completed by June 2007.

"The existing buildings have been open three years, and we're bursting at the seams now," said Marc Leediker, vice president of health care development at LandPlan. The 63-acre property likely also could hold two smaller office buildings, which might be built in the next three to five years.

The hospital will add 12 inpatient beds and four intensive care unit beds, though most of the procedures performed there are done on an outpatient basis. The facility also will add five operating rooms, for a total of 11.

About 7,000 procedures will be completed at the hospital this year and the expansion will increase the capacity to 11,000 procedures.

"We're just trying to meet the needs both of the surgeon and the patient," said Dr. Jimmy Laferney, chief medical officer, an anesthesiologist and investor. More than 230 physicians are on the hospital's medical staff. The expansion should boost that number to more than 300, said Bill Keaton, CEO of the hospital.

Frisco Medical Center officials also are planning a 5,000- to 6,000-square-foot educational lab with a classroom, operating room access and cadaver learning rooms.

It will be the first hands-on training facility of its kind in the Baylor system, said Michael Taylor, senior vice president of community medical centers for Baylor.

Long-range plan

The LandPlan development hopes to piggyback off the success of the Frisco Medical Center.

Tentatively named Stonebriar Health Center, the LandPlan development calls for specialty hospitals, a community hospital, medical office space and biomedical business space. The campus also could include a 40- to 60-room hotel to house patients and families and create a spa-like retreat.

The growth in health care development recently is encouraging, said Larry W. Calton, executive director of the North Texas Enterprise Center for Medical Technology (NTEC Inc.), an incubator and business accelerator in Frisco.

Calton said he has been talking with Frisco officials and developers for more than a year about developing a research park that would house early stage and later stage biomedical companies.

"The city and a lot of the developers here have some interest in continuing to see the health care emphasis in Frisco expand," Calton said. "We clearly embrace that."

Author Information

Dallas Business Journal From the December 2, 2005 print edition