FROM THE PRESIDENT

It is an exciting time to be in the Texas Medical Center. Buildings are going up all around us. The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, Baylor College of Medicine, Texas Children's Hospital, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and the Texas Heart Institute are all in some phase of planning for, or are already under construction on new facilities. These new structures will accommodate more research and clinical space.

Coinciding with this expansion is the planning for the move of the world-renowned Menninger Clinic from Topeka, Kan. to the Texas Medical Center in 2002.

When all is said and done, the medical center will have expanded from 20.5 million square feet, to more than 30 million square feet. It is interesting that the medical center is as dense as New York City's Wall Street, almost as dense as the Chicago Loop, twice as dense as downtown Houston and three times as dense as the Galleria area.

Something worth mentioning, regarding space for the expanding medical center institutions, is that The Texas Medical Center has acquired a new building at 6803 Almeda at Holcombe. Many of you may know it as the old Nabisco factory. It sits on 21 acres of land, 10 of which are occupied by the building. This is equivalent to approximately 650,000 square feet of space. The building consists of four floors and the entire building is sprinkled. The space will satisfy the institutions' needs for expanding laboratory and office space.

As the Texas Medical Center continues to grow, traffic remains a significant problem. In a single day, an estimated 130,000 to 150,000 patients, family members, students, employees and visitors require street access in and around the medical center. As a result, the Texas Medical Center has been considering alternate ways to move traffic, including the proposed expansion of Bertner Avenue south connecting Cambridge Street to North MacGregor Drive across the Brays Bayou with new bridges.

With growth comes change, and in this case it's positive. The Texas Medical Center remains the home of some of the finest hospitals, universities and research centers in the world, ensuring Houston's place on the forefront of the medical frontier.

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©2006 Texas Medical Center

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URL: http://www.tmc.edu/tmcnews/10_15_00/page_19.html