One of the most ambitious economic development projects in El Paso's history, mired in politics and
semi-moribund for the past couple of years, is about to reemerge. The project, the Medical Center of the
Americas, would cluster medical assets in the area now dominated by Thomason and Texas Tech.
The idea is that Thomason's $120 million expansion, Tech's nascent medical school, and the affiliated labs and
centers, along with a children's hospital, would create a gravity that draws public and private institutions to
create an economic center along the lines of San Antonio's South Texas Medical Center or Houston's Texas
Medical Center.

"Increased medical capacity, new research programs, and the addition of substantial new educational activity
offers the promise of hundreds of new jobs and millions of dollars of increased economic activity, to say nothing
of the spin-off effects on commercialization of research and the consumer sectors of El Paso," states the
executive summary of a 2003 study that sets a course for the project.

The study, titled "The Feasibility of a Regional Unified Health Sciences Park in El Paso," was prepared for the
city of El Paso and the Border Health Institute by Texas Perspectives and delivered Aug. 8, 2003.
The fact that the study was prepared for the Border Health Institute (BHI), which is inoperational, helps
explain why the project went quiet for two years, as does a quick review of the project's history.
The project is the result of planning in the 1990s, including an event in 1998 dubbed the "economic summit."
Instrumental in those efforts were state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh and former Mayor Ray Caballero (2001-2003).
Through their efforts, and state Rep. Joe Pickett, the BHI was authorized by the state and created to oversee
development of a medical industry. One key element of that, running on a parallel track, was Tech opening a
four-year medical school adjacent to Thomason.

There was wide public support for the medical school; the BHI concept was not such an easy sell, although most
community leaders had signed a series of documents affirming a commitment to the idea.
Caballero faced emotional neighborhood opposition when the city created a Tax Increment Finance district,
which residents feared would be used to enhance the city's ability to take their homes through eminent domain.
Their fear was stoked by the mayor's political enemies, including then-Council members Luis Sarinana and
Anthony Cobos, both of whom now are running for seats on the County Commission. Sarinana floated an idea
created by Jaime Perez, his adviser, that there be a "virtual campus" instead.

Later, Shapleigh publicly feuded with UTEP President Diana Natalicio over whether UTEP would place its
allied health programs, in whole or part, next to the Thomason-Tech campus.
Those events, and the defeat of Caballero by Joe Wardy in 2003, pushed the concept of medical service,
research and teaching clustered in one physical location into the background, and the medical school, which was
making progress, became the focus of El Paso's political, civic and business leadership.
However, the larger picture never went dark. Which takes us to the present, in which most people involved say
if we build it, they will come.

"In Houston, in 1948 the medical center was a cowpatch. Now 80,000 people work there," Shapleigh said.
Currently, two parallel efforts are picking up steam -- the Medical Center of the Americas Development
Foundation, a non-profit formed to pick up where the BHI left off, and the Mayor's Medical Cabinet, which is
scheduled to meet April 12 to hear an update from the MCA Foundation.
The foundation, boosted by the Paso Del Norte Group's health committee activities, involves some of the
region's heaviest hitters, including businessmen Rick Francis, Robert Brown and Woody Hunt, who all are
members of the PDNG.
The Mayor's Cabinet includes Dr. Manny de la Rosa, regional dean of Tech's El Paso medical school, and Jim
Valenti, the CEO of R.E. Thomason Hospital.
"We're trying to create a medical oasis," said Valenti, a supporter of the medical center concept. A geographic
location, he said, "is the proven way/ If we are going to compete for the top students, they'll want to learn where
the action is."
Valenti co-chairs the Mayor's Cabinet with de la Rosa. "What we've focused on is getting each individual piece together. ...This is like a bridge, each one of us is getting a pedestal together, we're digging foundations," de la Rosa said.
"The mayor has taken the lead by pulling together the medical cabinet, which has taken up where the BHI and others have refocused their efforts to build each little piece together."Mayor John Cook said that "building the
components and finding out how they fit naturally into the physical facilities sounds to me like a better approach, and that's what I tasked the cabinet to study. What do we have to do to get the components and let the market
values of the property determine what goes where?"

Rep. Susie Byrd, who gave the idea a shot in the arm with a presentation during the Mayor's Economic Summit
last summer, said "What matters is to get a plan in place to look at how to develop the area around what is
already a campus to essentially revitalize the neighborhood and to create more economic opportunity."
Although the parties involved are holding off on the discussion of UTEP's participation, at least publicly, the
issue of how UTEP will be involved continues to simmer.
"UTEP's role is continuing its collaboration with Texas Tech in whatever way we can … that's what we're doing
and have been doing," said Richard Adauto, assistant to Natalicio. He called the question of whether UTEP
would move its allied health programs to the Thomason-Tech cluster a "dead issue." The programs are expected
to move from their current Stanton Street location sometime around 2009.

"Everyone knows it will be on (UTEP's) campus. Tech is fine with it," Adauto said. "You're talking about
undergraduate students who need to take other classes, like math history and biology … this is not a
self-contained campus where students can live without the main campus."
Both UTEP and EPCC committed to taking part somehow in the project, according to minutes from a BHI
meeting in November, 2001. "When resources become available for upgrading and expanding its health
professions education facilities, UTEP will locate those programs at the site that offers the greatest potential for
added value and synergies," reads the motion, which was approved by a BHI board that included Natalicio and
Ramon Dominguez of El Paso Community College.
Woody Hunt, the business leader who has been heavily involve with the medical center project as well as with UTEP, said the community was a long way from having to decide such issues. “Ultimately the community will decide. But we've got a long way to go. We have to take the most important issue first -- do we have an anchor tenant?” he said, referring to the medical school. The medical school is referred to as the anchor in the 2003 Texas Perspectives study, which is setting the baseline for much of the discussion. The study recommended creation of a development foundation that can own land and build attractive
properties.

Ralph Adame, who is part of both the Mayor's Cabinet and the MCA Foundation, said the plans include raising
funds for a children's hospital and "using synergy to create critical mass. It's not all-inclusive, and it's not
designed as the only medical center."
He noted the clusters of health care surrounding UTEP, the old Pill Hill under Scenic Drive, and hospitals on the
East and Far East Sides.
However, he said, there is enough land already owned by the city, by Tech and Thomason, and property not in
use that can be bought to create "a medical complex with distinct geographic boundaries."