Texas Medical Center’s Newest Building Offers Un"Common" Amenities

Next month, Texas Medical Center visitors, employees, students and volunteers will benefit from a centrally located facility where they can join together to meet, eat and shop under one roof ... all without relinquishing coveted parking spaces or navigating heavy traffic and construction zones in an attempt to dine out or run errands.

This long-awaited vision is now a reality with the impending completion of the John P. McGovern Texas Medical Center Commons building, which will feature a host of well-known eateries, an upscale Italian restaurant, banking facilities, combination gift shop/florist, and a 500-space visitors’ parking garage.

Centrally located in the heart of the Texas Medical Center at the intersection of Bertner Avenue and Moursund Street, the 288,000 square-foot building is within walking distance from most Texas Medical Center institutions, including Baylor College of Medicine, The University of Texas Medical School and Dental Branch, The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, The Institute for Rehabilitation and Research, Texas Heart Institute, and Methodist, St. Luke’s, Memorial Hermann, and Texas Children’s Hospitals. Currently in the final phase of construction, the building’s completion is set for Sept. 3. The sixth-floor restaurant, Trevisio, will begin accepting reservations Sept. 16.

"The John P. McGovern Commons Building is a welcome addition. Its retail and dining establishments, meeting and conference facilities, and additional parking are eagerly anticipated by those who work, visit and seek medical care here," said Dr. Richard E. Wainerdi, president and CEO of the Texas Medical Center, which encompasses 42 hospitals, universities, and other institutions devoted to research, patient care, and education.

Medical Center officials have known for some time that such a facility is needed, said Andrew Icken, Texas Medical Center executive vice president.

"Individual hospitals and universities house restaurants, gift shops and meeting rooms, but until now, there’s been no central gathering spot. We put together a plan to create the Commons building, and we are about to realize that plan," Icken said.

The six-story Commons building features a unique, quarter-round design, and is entirely conceptualized along a "water-based" theme. Bordering the front entrance to the building are two towering water walls, which "wrap" around the structure’s rounded wall. At 64 feet high, the water walls are four feet taller than the Galleria-area Williams Tower water walls (formerly the Transco Tower water walls).

Beginning at the bottom and working up, the Commons building features:

• Underground – Two floors of visitor parking spaces

• Floor 1 – "Waterside Court," Food court featuring Einstein Bros. Bagels, Great American Cookie Company, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Kim Son, Luther’s, Starbuck’s, TCBY, and the Waterside Café featuring Omaha Steaks.

Big-screen televisions broadcast CNN news coverage throughout the first floor, while outdoor dining is available on the Water Wall Patio. Breakfast, lunch and dinner are served by several of the first-floor eateries, and a pickup window is available for patrons on the run.

• Floors 2 through 5 – Above-ground visitors’ parking garage

• Floor 6 – Home to Trevisio, an upscale, white-tablecloth restaurant serving "sophisticated" Italian cuisine. The enticing menu stays faithful to several Italian classics while adding a host of enlightened and surprising selections.

Deriving its name from the Trevi Fountain in Rome, which was immortalized in the 1954 movie "Three Coins in the Fountain," Trevisio features an indoor waterfall and an interior design palette that artistically blends aquatic colors in varying hues of blues, golds and chromes. The restaurant seats up to 300 guests, and offers a panoramic view of the Texas Medical Center with floor-to-ceiling windows. Private dining rooms are available for groups hosting meetings or celebrations. Trevisio serves breakfast from 6:30 to 10 a.m., lunch from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., and dinner from 5 to 10 p.m. Outdoor terrace dining is available.

Also on the sixth floor are eight conference rooms equipped with state-of-the-art audio/visual equipment to accommodate health care professionals and others who host meetings. The rooms include one 85-person reception room, four 40-person meeting rooms (two can be joined together by removing a center partition), a 20-person study, a 16-person after-dinner lounge, and a 15-person meeting room. Trevisio provides catering for groups utilizing these rooms, and also handles room reservations.

Trevisio and its conference facility are owned by the Texas Medical Center but operated by independent restaurant guru David Edwards, who owns downtown’s wildly popular Mercury Room, Boaka Bar and Zula restaurant. Edwards’ company will operate Trevisio through a management contract with the nonprofit Texas Medical Center.

"Trevisio is one-of-a-kind. There’s nothing remotely like it in the Texas Medical Center," Edwards said.

Other sixth-floor businesses include Greenworks, a combination florist and gift shop, and Southwest Bank of Texas. Automatic teller machines are located on the building’s first, third and sixth floors.

The $38 million Commons building will be funded through the sale of bonds issued by the Texas Medical Center and philanthropic donations.

The building’s design and construction team includes Jackson & Ryan Architects, general contractor Miner Dederick (under the direction of project managers Buescher Inc.), and interior designers Whitney and Whitney.

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©2006 Texas Medical Center

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