Vertical Medical City | 40-Story Medical High Rise [Proposed]

[spenser1058]

There’s a move afoot in the FL Legislature to gut certificate of need requirements for hospitals. Normally, this would have no chance of advancing but it seems to be a priority of Speaker Oliva for reasons I don’t yet know. 

There is horse trading going on with Senate President Galvano to advance his plans to build previously rejected toll roads through environmentally sensitive sections of the state.

While the hospital issue could endanger things like Level 1 Trauma Centers in urban areas and move badly needed hospitals away from rural areas, it would allow Ms. Ponte to build her project cheek by jowl with existing facilities even if no need exists.

Thankfully, the Legislature is running out of time, so nothing may come of this. Stay tuned.

Edited April 22, 2019 by spenser1058

[aent]

3 hours ago, spenser1058 said:

There’s a move afoot in the FL Legislature to gut certificate of need requirements for hospitals. Normally, this would have no chance of advancing but it seems to be a priority of Speaker Oliva for reasons I don’t yet know. 

There is horse trading going on with Senate President Galvano to advance his plans to build previously rejected toll roads through environmentally sensitive sections of the state.

While the hospital issue could endanger things like Level 1 Trauma Centers in urban areas and move badly needed hospitals away from rural areas, it would allow Ms. Ponte to build her project cheek by jowl with existing facilities even if no need exists.

Thankfully, the Legislature is running out of time, so nothing may come of this. Stay tuned.

That probably is among the highest things negatively effecting cost and quality of healthcare in our state and country,  so I hope they gut those requirements, urban area issues be damned. Life is just much more important then getting a fancy building near downtown

[spenser1058]

1 minute ago, aent said:

That probably is among the highest things negatively effecting cost and quality of healthcare in our state and country,  so I hope they gut those requirements, urban area issues be damned. Life is just much more important then getting a fancy building near downtown

 

1 minute ago, aent said:

That probably is among the highest things negatively effecting cost and quality of healthcare in our state and country,  so I hope they gut those requirements, urban area issues be damned. Life is just much more important then getting a fancy building near downtown

So the answer is endless duplication of services and no way to fund necessary, not always profitable needs like Level 1 Trauma Centers. That’s how the hospital at the Villages was rated 1 of 5 stars by the federal government. Let’s go ahead and kill top-flight facilities like Jackson in Miami and go for mediocre. Go for it!

[HankStrong]

Non-politically speaking, I think the highest thing negatively impacting costs and quality of healthcare in our state and country is that our healthcare system is a for-profit enterprise.   Having a state and nation of the most healthy human beings on planet Earth should be the goal, not whether this medicine or that service makes our shareholders more money.  Insulin, epi-pens, or healthy babies shouldn't be bargaining chips for politicians, they should be basic rights of the citizens of the self-proclaimed best nation on the planet.

[spenser1058]

3 minutes ago, HankStrong said:

Non-politically speaking, I think the highest thing negatively impacting costs and quality of healthcare in our state and country is that our healthcare system is a for-profit enterprise.   Having a state and nation of the most healthy human beings on planet Earth should be the goal, not whether this medicine or that service makes our shareholders more money.  Insulin, epi-pens, or healthy babies shouldn't be bargaining chips for politicians, they should be basic rights of the citizens of the self-proclaimed best nation on the planet.

What’s interesting is that, in the latest federal government rankings, the best in Central Florida is the public, non-profit, non-religious hospital, Orlando Health.

[HankStrong]

It's a shame they aren't all that way.  As long as people dying or being hurt makes people money there is little benefit to making them stop die or stop being ill.   And furthermore, no matter what OH does on a local or state level, they still have to buy all their supplies and tools from people who are trying to make as much profit as possible.  That means they can only control what they do, not the root of the problem.

 

I'm not trying to tell people how to run the country or if this side is better than that side.

I just think that the health (and education, but that's another topic) of the nation's NUMBER ONE RESOURCE (its citizens) shouldn't be a game of chance or a money-making venture.  No citizen should be dying because insulin is too expensive or because they couldn't afford an epi-pen or because they couldn't get a mammogram/screening/wellness visit.  No one deserves that.

[aent]

4 hours ago, spenser1058 said:

 

So the answer is endless duplication of services and no way to fund necessary, not always profitable needs like Level 1 Trauma Centers. That’s how the hospital at the Villages was rated 1 of 5 stars by the federal government. Let’s go ahead and kill top-flight facilities like Jackson in Miami and go for mediocre. Go for it!

The duplication of services means lower prices, you're increasing supply without increasing demand (or in the case of health care, probably also increasing demand as it will be more readily available, the high costs and long wait times makes so many people not get services at all). It works that way for every other industry: when you see a single gas station in an area with no one else around is gonna have much higher gas prices then one where there is 3 on the corner. When you have few grocery stores in an area, prices go high, but as soon as the area becomes saturated with them, prices drop. You need those  duplication of services in order to keep the supply high enough that demand isn't pushing the cost upwards.

Whats the real worst case? The market becomes oversupplied and one fails? You'll still have more hospitals then you do today, and the others will be able to buy the really expensive medical equipment from the failed hospital for pennys on the dollar and have a much lower cost basis. The only one that loses out is the investors in the failed hospital, all the citizens win as that failed investor now subsidized the cost of their healthcare.

I just believe that the same system that works for getting better products to people for lower costs in literally every other industry would work for healthcare too. Having Google compete with Yahoo, Bing, and former competitors like Alta Vista, AOL, and Ask means we now have an absolutely amazing search engine available for free to find out all sorts of life saving information. Having a choice of 20 different phone brands means we can now easily pick up a cheap phone that works acceptably for $100 and get an amazing phone for under $1k. In areas where the governments have allowed a choice of internet providers and people have 2 or 3 choices, the internet speeds are far faster then areas where there is one choice and the government having their franchise agreements (when I lived in a community that had 3 ISPs, I had 100 Mbps service for $20/month and gigabit for $40/month), among the first to get AT&T Fiber with huge promotions, and Comcast had constant sales as well. Yeah, its a duplication of really expensive infrastructure to have 3 sets of fiberoptic cables coming into my home, but thats whats necessary to get the price down, the risk of me not using one of them.

 

58 minutes ago, HankStrong said:

I just think that the health (and education, but that's another topic) of the nation's NUMBER ONE RESOURCE (its citizens) shouldn't be a game of chance or a money-making venture.  No citizen should be dying because insulin is too expensive or because they couldn't afford an epi-pen or because they couldn't get a mammogram/screening/wellness visit.  No one deserves that.

Healthcare will always be a money-making venture (unless you're proposing our country go to an entirely communist system), its just a question of who is making money off of it. Should it be a money making venture for the doctor who is providing your surgery? Is the researcher who is discovering the life saving drug for you allowed to make money?

 

And our current system is a game of chance. If you happen to get sick near or live near a good hospital, you do a whole lot better then if you get sick in the wrong area. As spenser said, those who live in the Villages lost that game of chance, and with our current system, no one is allowed to compete with them. Removing the Certificate of Need requirement will finally allow someone to compete with that 1 of 5 star hospital he's talking about.

In my eyes, this is literally among the top of the things we can do to improve our healthcare in the country. Only thing that really would top it would be to reform the patent system to provide a lot less protections for the pharmaceutical corporations to make it a lot faster and easier for the competitors to sell competing drugs and medical equipment. (Sadly, I seem to be alone on that opinion, both sides of the isle seem to want to keep insanely long patent periods with the expensive system we have today)

[Uncommon]

Article on the front page of GrowthSpotter is about Ponte and VMC: https://www.growthspotter.com/news/downtown-orlando-developments/gs-ponte-health-submits-new-master-plan-for-vertical-medical-city-20190422-story.html

Ponte Health submits Master Plan application for Vertical Medical City skyscraper

Ponte Health has filed a proposed Master Plan for its Vertical Medical City mixed-use tower in downtown Orlando's North Quarter district. This is the view looking south, with Interstate 4 on the right and N. Orange Avenue on the left.

The developer of the proposed Vertical Medical City in downtown Orlando has filed a Master Plan application with the city for the mixed-use medical tower in the North Quarter District.

Ponte Health CEO Tabitha Ponte told GrowthSpotter the firm is negotiating a 100-year land lease for the roughly 2.5 acres at 1000 N. Orange Ave. The site is bounded by the SunRail tracks and Orange Avenue on the east, Marks Street to the south and Garland Avenue on the north and west. 

The application indicates the project would be a mixed-use high rise tower with offices, ground floor retail, an assisted living facility and incorporated parking. Ponte said the tower would be 35 stories; the project previously received FAA approval to build up to a maximum height of 444 feet.

The developer of the proposed Vertical Medical City mixed-use tower said it hopes to break ground in January 2020.

The developer of the proposed Vertical Medical City mixed-use tower said it hopes to break ground in January 2020.

Jacobs is the lead architect and engineer, led by Principal Dan Kirby. 

The firm expects to complete foundations testing by October, Ponte said. She said the goal is to begin site development in January with delivery of the structured parking, ALF and streetscape with public plazas in 2023.

Ponte declined to discuss the project budget, which was previously reported at $1 billion, proposed uses or the phasing.

The property is owned by Mustang Orange Garland LLC, an affiliate of south Florida businessman Aaron Cherba, which bought the land in 2005 for $3 million.

The vacant lot formerly housed the Braun Cadillac dealership, but it was demolished in 1994. A proposed office tower and multifamily project submitted in 2006 never advanced beyond the application stage. 

Ponte had previously targeted a parking lot at the corner of Garland and W. Washington Street, but the company never placed the site under contract.

[WAJAS]

7 hours ago, aent said:

The duplication of services means lower prices, you're increasing supply without increasing demand (or in the case of health care, probably also increasing demand as it will be more readily available, the high costs and long wait times makes so many people not get services at all). It works that way for every other industry: when you see a single gas station in an area with no one else around is gonna have much higher gas prices then one where there is 3 on the corner. When you have few grocery stores in an area, prices go high, but as soon as the area becomes saturated with them, prices drop. You need those  duplication of services in order to keep the supply high enough that demand isn't pushing the cost upwards.

Whats the real worst case? The market becomes oversupplied and one fails? You'll still have more hospitals then you do today, and the others will be able to buy the really expensive medical equipment from the failed hospital for pennys on the dollar and have a much lower cost basis. The only one that loses out is the investors in the failed hospital, all the citizens win as that failed investor now subsidized the cost of their healthcare.

I just believe that the same system that works for getting better products to people for lower costs in literally every other industry would work for healthcare too. Having Google compete with Yahoo, Bing, and former competitors like Alta Vista, AOL, and Ask means we now have an absolutely amazing search engine available for free to find out all sorts of life saving information. Having a choice of 20 different phone brands means we can now easily pick up a cheap phone that works acceptably for $100 and get an amazing phone for under $1k. In areas where the governments have allowed a choice of internet providers and people have 2 or 3 choices, the internet speeds are far faster then areas where there is one choice and the government having their franchise agreements (when I lived in a community that had 3 ISPs, I had 100 Mbps service for $20/month and gigabit for $40/month), among the first to get AT&T Fiber with huge promotions, and Comcast had constant sales as well. Yeah, its a duplication of really expensive infrastructure to have 3 sets of fiberoptic cables coming into my home, but thats whats necessary to get the price down, the risk of me not using one of them.

 

Healthcare will always be a money-making venture (unless you're proposing our country go to an entirely communist system), its just a question of who is making money off of it. Should it be a money making venture for the doctor who is providing your surgery? Is the researcher who is discovering the life saving drug for you allowed to make money?

 

And our current system is a game of chance. If you happen to get sick near or live near a good hospital, you do a whole lot better then if you get sick in the wrong area. As spenser said, those who live in the Villages lost that game of chance, and with our current system, no one is allowed to compete with them. Removing the Certificate of Need requirement will finally allow someone to compete with that 1 of 5 star hospital he's talking about.

In my eyes, this is literally among the top of the things we can do to improve our healthcare in the country. Only thing that really would top it would be to reform the patent system to provide a lot less protections for the pharmaceutical corporations to make it a lot faster and easier for the competitors to sell competing drugs and medical equipment. (Sadly, I seem to be alone on that opinion, both sides of the isle seem to want to keep insanely long patent periods with the expensive system we have today)

While I will be upfront that I didn’t read this wall of text, the difference between healthcare and other industries is clear to me: one is a need the rest  are a want.

If your point is besides this one, then I apologize for the interruption.  I personally don’t currently have time to go into a deep discussion with cited accounts and whatnot at the moment.

[prahaboheme]

 

11 hours ago, aent said:

The duplication of services means lower prices, you're increasing supply without increasing demand (or in the case of health care, probably also increasing demand as it will be more readily available, the high costs and long wait times makes so many people not get services at all). It works that way for every other industry: when you see a single gas station in an area with no one else around is gonna have much higher gas prices then one where there is 3 on the corner. When you have few grocery stores in an area, prices go high, but as soon as the area becomes saturated with them, prices drop. You need those  duplication of services in order to keep the supply high enough that demand isn't pushing the cost upwards.

Whats the real worst case? The market becomes oversupplied and one fails? You'll still have more hospitals then you do today, and the others will be able to buy the really expensive medical equipment from the failed hospital for pennys on the dollar and have a much lower cost basis. The only one that loses out is the investors in the failed hospital, all the citizens win as that failed investor now subsidized the cost of their healthcare.

I just believe that the same system that works for getting better products to people for lower costs in literally every other industry would work for healthcare too. Having Google compete with Yahoo, Bing, and former competitors like Alta Vista, AOL, and Ask means we now have an absolutely amazing search engine available for free to find out all sorts of life saving information. Having a choice of 20 different phone brands means we can now easily pick up a cheap phone that works acceptably for $100 and get an amazing phone for under $1k. In areas where the governments have allowed a choice of internet providers and people have 2 or 3 choices, the internet speeds are far faster then areas where there is one choice and the government having their franchise agreements (when I lived in a community that had 3 ISPs, I had 100 Mbps service for $20/month and gigabit for $40/month), among the first to get AT&T Fiber with huge promotions, and Comcast had constant sales as well. Yeah, its a duplication of really expensive infrastructure to have 3 sets of fiberoptic cables coming into my home, but thats whats necessary to get the price down, the risk of me not using one of them.

 

Healthcare will always be a money-making venture (unless you're proposing our country go to an entirely communist system), its just a question of who is making money off of it. Should it be a money making venture for the doctor who is providing your surgery? Is the researcher who is discovering the life saving drug for you allowed to make money?

 

And our current system is a game of chance. If you happen to get sick near or live near a good hospital, you do a whole lot better then if you get sick in the wrong area. As spenser said, those who live in the Villages lost that game of chance, and with our current system, no one is allowed to compete with them. Removing the Certificate of Need requirement will finally allow someone to compete with that 1 of 5 star hospital he's talking about.

In my eyes, this is literally among the top of the things we can do to improve our healthcare in the country. Only thing that really would top it would be to reform the patent system to provide a lot less protections for the pharmaceutical corporations to make it a lot faster and easier for the competitors to sell competing drugs and medical equipment. (Sadly, I seem to be alone on that opinion, both sides of the isle seem to want to keep insanely long patent periods with the expensive system we have today)

This is pretty much the Amazon mentality to having a non-regulated healthcare industry.  The misnomer that capitalism exists in a non-regulated vacuum seems lost on this generation.

Also, pharmaceuticals are not as protected under their own patents as they once were. You didn’t come up with this.

Biosimilars is a major push in the biopharma industry. 

 

[spenser1058]

Not very long ago, there was talk of an ER and surgical center. Now it’s offices with the ALF and retail. Why do I keep getting the impression she’s throwing things at a wall to see what sticks?

Perhaps because I’m old enough now to imagine myself in an ALF one day, being jammed into a sea of concrete for my final days hardly seems appealing. 

 

Edited April 23, 2019 by spenser1058

[HankStrong]

I'd put you in an ALF now, if that helps!   

[spenser1058]

25 minutes ago, HankStrong said:

I'd put you in an ALF now, if that helps!   

*Gets out his walker*

[codypet]

Could be worse.  You could be with this ALF.

[aent]

9 hours ago, WAJAS98 said:

While I will be upfront that I didn’t read this wall of text, the difference between healthcare and other industries is clear to me: one is a need the rest  are a want.

 

I figured that'd be the response, which is what I put food and groceries as the very first example. I'd definitely make the argument that food is a need even more then healthcare. And Venezuela is a prime example when you say food is a need so the government needs to run the distribution. And then we need bread lines, which I know some people think is a good thing... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJBjjP8WSbc but I don't.

Anyways, back on topic... I imagine ALF doesn't push any sort of need for higher floor heights... so I assume the height of this has been reduced a bit?

[HankStrong]

1 hour ago, codypet said:

Could be worse.  You could be with this ALF.

I kill me!

[jrs2]

5 hours ago, spenser1058 said:

Not very long ago, there was talk of an ER and surgical center. Now it’s offices with the ALF and retail. Why do I keep getting the impression she’s throwing things at a wall to see what sticks?

Perhaps because I’m old enough now to imagine myself in an ALF one day, being jammed into a sea of concrete for my final days hardly seems appealing. 

 

I think you hit the nail on the head.  It's real estate.  The point of developing a project is to become a landlord.  Does one really care what kind of business generates the rent?  No.  So, whichever way the pendulum swings, I believe, and I think you do as well, is the direction this project will take with regards to what the final project's purpose will actually be.  There's no such thing as idealism when there's no money at the end of the tunnel (not that Ponte are idealists...).

[spenser1058]

“Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine. Play it, Sam...” - Casablanca

That, I suppose, is what’s stumping me here. Sure, you do what you need to in order to pull a project through. This one, however, has changed almost weekly from the very beginning. I’m certainly not in the development business and never have been but if I’d ever run a campaign this way I would have been laughed out of the business for the sheer amateur nature of the thing.

And why us? Even the doomed projects we’ve joked about here had some at least tenuous connection to the local area. 

This, on the other hand, seems to have no knowledge or history or much of anything at all to do with the local area (if it did, who in the world would they keep trying to jam old folks into bar districts and then major traffic zones? For that matter, Orlando proper is one of the youngest cities in Florida - if you were trying to attract seniors, why not go where they’re at?)

Nothing about this entire thing seems to indicate there was any plan more serious than throwing a dart on a map and seeing where it landed. I freely acknowledge, I just don’t get it.

 

 

Edited April 24, 2019 by spenser1058

[jrs2]

46 minutes ago, spenser1058 said:

“Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine. Play it, Sam...” - Casablanca

That, I suppose, is what’s stumping me here. Sure, you do what you need to in order to pull a project through. This one, however, has changed almost weekly from the very beginning. I’m certainly not in the development business and never have been but if I’d ever run a campaign this way I would have been laughed out of the business for the sheer amateur nature of the thing.

And why us? Even the doomed projects we’ve joked about here had some at least tenuous connection to the local area. 

This, on the other hand, seems to have no knowledge or history or much of anything at all to do with the local area (if it did, who in the world would keep trying to jam old folks into bar districts and then major traffic zones? For that matter, Orlando proper is one of the youngest cities in Florida - if you were trying to attract seniors, why not go where they’re at?)

Nothing about this entire thing seems to indicate there was any plan more serious than throwing a dart on a map and seeing where it landed. I freely acknowledge, I just don’t get it.

Exactly.  Why not go to Lake Nona?  Since when does downtown have a health industry reputation?  Is it perceived as such because of the expansions at FH South and Orlando Health?  News to me ...

The Chicago proposal- maybe, because Chicago is a medical Mecca of sorts, but even there...old folks in a tower downtown?  The doctor offices I can see, but, the typical model is like that medical plaza off of Oak St. in Kissimmee.

I also am trying to figure out what the real end game is here.  I can't imagine people with $$$ would blindly push for an unconventional project without a parachute Plan B or C.   But, architects and engineers will take the business and design you whatever you want so long as they get paid; they don't care about it's feasibility of ever getting built; so the fact that there are pretty drawings shouldn't fool people into thinking this project has real "legs."

[spenser1058]

Speaking of location, if I were trying to do a project like this, my starting point would be something between the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville and Ponte (hmmm, appropriate) Vedra, one of the wealthiest areas in the state. That’s just me blue-skying, however.

 

[jrs2]

1 hour ago, spenser1058 said:

Speaking of location, if I were trying to do a project like this, my starting point would be something between the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville and Ponte (hmmm, appropriate) Vedra, one of the wealthiest areas in the state. That’s just me blue-skying, however.

 

very, very good point... kind of like also perhaps building something like this in Aventura or somewhere in Miami Beach...it seems it would fit that demographic much better than here...

[dcluley98]

I'll just leave this here. No response. . . 

(this was before the article that said they are looking to lease the land from the owner, who is Mustang Orange Garland LLC/Aaron Churba, the aforementioned "old rich guy" who lives in Hallandale Beach)

[aent]

VMC's previous tweet is about closing on the land soon... and now its a land lease apparently? Sounds odd.

How often is this type of building done on a land lease? I usually hear about that all the time on much smaller stuff, outparcels, etc. It just feels like it'd be an issue for financing the building

[Jernigan]

[spenser1058]

29 minutes ago, Jernigan said:

We are also pleased to announce George, SEIU, as our certified janitor. We’re on our way!