St. Luke's CEO: Hospital taking risk in buying land for medical mall

It's well known that St. Luke's Hospital has been buying up property in the new Cedar Rapids Medical District centered along 10th Street SE, including land on which Physicians' Clinic of Iowa plans to build a $36-million medical building it calls a medical “mall.”

However, Ted Townsend, president/CEO of St. Luke's Hospital, said this week that St. Luke's Hospital has taken a risk in buying property because it has no signed agreement that commits PCI to build its new building in the Medical District.

“We are acquiring properties because we believe this (the PCI building) would be a good project for Cedar Rapids and for St. Luke's in the long run,” said Townsend. “We believe if the specialists do well in the community, we believe the hospitals also will do well in the long run.

“But at this point in time, we are at some risk. We have done this because we think it's the right thing. We do not have a signed agreement.”

Townsend is squarely behind the PCI proposal, including the most hotly debated part of it - PCI's request to close the arterial street, Second Avenue SE, between 10th and 12th streets SE. PCI says skywalks over Second Avenue SE would be expensive and would complicate how patients flow from place to place in the medical mall.

Townsend - who spoke during an interview Wednesday evening at the first of two public open houses designed to acquaint the public with the Medical District idea, PCI's building plans and the PCI proposal to close Second Avenue SE - said PCI worked hard to come up w