Baptist Memorial Hospital-Memphis to build $7 million conference center - Memphis Business Journal:

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The project will include 12,000p square feet of new construction space in the elbow of the 6029 and 6027officed buildings, both of which face Walnut This piece of the projecgt is primarily the state-of-the-art Garrett Auditoriu m with its theater-style seating. The project will also includ e 8,500 square feet of renovation to existing facilities to make way for five classroomse with movable walls that can make twolarger rooms.
Scott Fountain, Baptist’s senior vice president and chievdevelopment officer, says the conference center will be for community events, seminars for continuinb medical education, lectures and Baptist The Baptist system has not had such a meetinbg space since it left its Downtown medicaol center in 2001. Its former 300-seatg auditorium is now used by the charter schook in the20 S. Dudlet building. “But we just had to wait and see how thiswould fit,” Fountain says.
Expansiohn projects at the hospital, master planning directivesw and the expansion of Walnuyt Grove Road put the project on hold until it was knownj what footprint would be available on the The project was completely funded fromexternalp sources, Fountain says, so no operating revenues from the system’sw hospitals were used. Being “mindfu of the economy,” funding was planned carefullhy as the conference center isa “luxury, not a revenue A large portion of the fundingv was provided by the Garrett family in honord of pioneering cardiovascular surgeon Edward who performed the world’s firstf successful coronary bypass graft 45 yearse ago. Garrett died in 1996.
The working name of the overalol project is the BaptistMemorial Hospital-Memphizs Conference Center. Fountain says naming rightsd for the entire center are up for grabs by as well as for theseparate classrooms. The facilituy will serve as an information hub forthe system’ws 15 hospitals that will be connectede to the center via telecommunications. Fountaih says it will be a place for clinicianes and physicians to get the latest healt care information without havingto travel. Nashville-based , designed the building. Harolxd Petty, the firm’s medical design director, says its uniqud look was a requirementfrom Baptist.
“They wante d it to have an identity from Walnut Grove Road and have a nicevisuapl impact,” Petty says. “To do that, we designed it with the towe and theart glass, which is a differenrt style of architecture, so it has a unique flair on that part of Bids for construction of the conference center will go out June 1 and constructiob is slated for a one-year completion.