Medical District forum draws crowd, plus written response from medical institutions

We had a capacity crowd of 150-160 people at the Tuesday, March 29, public forum The Gazette and KCRG-TV9 hosted to examine whether the proposed MedQuarter Regional Medical District in Cedar Rapids can be a model for both historic preservation and growth. We consider the forum to be a success. It engaged the community in a conversation about an important matter that affects all of us.

An ad The Gazette ran for two days caused a stir because it used the caption "Medical Mall Mayhem" to draw attention to a description of the forum, and to elicit interest in it. It wasn't our only promotion of the event -- I blogged about it and wrote a Sunday, March 20, Gazette column and we ran briefs leading up to the event. But the ad drew attention. Representatives of St. Luke's Hospital, Mercy Medical Center and Physicians' Clinic of Iowa, the three big medical facilities with a stake in the medical district, felt the phrase unfairly slanted the forum against the PCI plans to anchor the medical district with a medical mall.

That was not the intent. The phrase was over the top but our marketing creative team wanted to draw attention to the forum.  Our desire was to bring together people for a public discussion. We've heard a lot from people with questions, comments and criticisms who feel they haven't had a chance to influence or comment on the medical district plans. For them, mayhem seems to exist.

Or at least it did until the forum. Several people commented to me that the forum did a good job of giving people someplace to air their points of view about this public matter. One woman, in particular, who attended told me afterward she had come to the event angry about a pending closure of a part of Second Avenue, for PCI's plans, but came away softened and more interested in the medical district idea.

Representatives from St. Luke's, Mercy and PCI issued a statement about the forum and its substance. This link takes you to a copy. We had asked representatives of the institutions to participate in the forum as panelists but they declined our repeated requests. We felt they would bring something to the conversation but they said being panelists at this time before the district becomes final would be premature.

The panelists were City Council members Monica Vernon and Pat Shey; Cedar Rapids Historic Preservation Commission Chairwoman Maura Pilcher and Cedar Rapids historian Mark Stoffer Hunter. The forum was at the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art .

Click

here for a replay of the live blog from the forum.