Now that the Texas Tech University medical school campus is taking shape on 10 acres near Thomason Hospital in Central El Paso, and a 2009 date is set for entry of the school's first class, attention is turning toward what will be developed in the surrounding area.

The not-for-profit Medical Center of the Americas Foundation wants to have a hand in how the area develops. It has hired consultants to put together a $700,000 master development plan for 30 to 35 acres around the campus. The exact acreage will be determined through the master planning process, said Emma Schwartz, executive director of the foundation. The foundation has begun a campaign to raise $1 million for the master plan and foundation operational costs.

Meanwhile, owners of one property near the new medical school have already done some redevelopment because of the medical school, and other property owners are contemplating their next steps.

The foundation's aim is to create an integrated medical center with not only Texas Tech, Thomason and other health-related organizations tied together, but also to bring in facilities for medical research and pharmaceutical companies to locate, and to attract apartments, hotels, restaurants, stores and other commercial development to support the medical center.

"Our purpose is to master plan it and guide development," Schwartz said. The foundation does not have the power of eminent domain to force property owners to sell property, she noted.

The foundation's consultants plan meetings during the summer with various groups, including property owners, as they work to have a draft of the master plan by September, Schwartz said. The final plan is expected to be ready by early next year.

Art Fernandez and two partners who own Ameritech Distributing Inc. at 5201 El Paso Drive, and who own several El Paso Drive warehouse buildings between the new Texas Tech campus and Paisano Drive, redeveloped a building at El Paso Drive and Paisano into a 20,000-square-foot office building for doctors and other medical and professional-services firms.

"We bought it (three to four years ago) because it was a great opportunity, and then we decided to turn it into what it is because of the medical school," Fernandez said. Three potential tenants have been identified so far for the building, which is expected to be completed in about six weeks, he said.

"I think a master plan for the area is a great idea. I'll work with them (foundation). If I had to sell, I would sell (our properties)," Fernandez said. "It's critical to bring in property owners" in the planning process, he said.

Juan Uribe, broker-owner of Prudential CRES, an El Paso real estate company representing a family in Mexico that owns a strip shopping center and other properties across Alameda Street from the new Texas Tech campus, said he planned to pursue restaurants to locate on his clients' properties.

"We're looking to maximize the use of the property," Uribe said. "We'll have to see the master plan. But there was talk about redeveloping this area before, and nothing was done."

The Medical Center of the Americas Foundation, formed last November, is a spinoff of a previous organization that died. It died after a 200-acre redevelopment plan pushed by former Mayor Ray Caballero was derailed by controversy over the possible use of eminent domain to take residential and other properties and a proposal to create a tax increment finance district for the medical center area.

The old plan was "a little more ambitious and it envisioned the city as the master planner," said Ralph Adame, an El Paso businessman who was on the board of the old group and is on the new foundation board, which is headed by Woody Hunt, chairman of Hunt Building Corp.

"This (new plan) will be done by the foundation" and its partners in the private and public sectors, Adame said. "We don't have the eminent domain hammer. We can live with that."

The foundation board hasn't determined whether it would try to buy land in the medical center area or just let private developers do it, Schwartz said. "It will probably be somewhere in the middle," she said.

The foundation's policy is that board members and foundation staff, including Schwartz, and their family members, can't profit from medical center projects, Schwartz said. That means Schwartz's husband, El Paso land developer Doug Schwartz, couldn't profit from projects, she said. The board and Emma Schwartz have signed a code of ethics and business conduct, which also bars them from profiting from medical center development, she said.

Avi Kotkowski, a real estate agent for Holder Real Estate and representative of some California investors who in the past two years bought two properties on the 100 block of Concepcion Street, directly in front of the new Texas Tech campus, said he and the owners are eager to work with the medical school in developing their property. Kotkowski wasn't aware of the Medical Center of the Americas Foundation.

"Me and the owners have agreed to do something to enhance the school," Kotkowski said. "We'd look at selling if someone makes the right offer, or we'd look into a joint venture if someone wants to do that."

If the foundation is putting together a development plan, "it needs to start talking to property owners. People can do stupid things, and it might cost more money to change it later," Kotkowski said.

Mike Estrada, 77, has seen many changes in the area from his perch across the street from Thomason Hospital where he's owned and operated Alameda Thrifty Pharmacy for almost 50 years. A few years ago, he did some redevelopment when he built a small strip shopping center anchored by a new building for his pharmacy near the intersection of Alameda and Val Verde. He owns several properties, including a 17-unit apartment house, along Alameda Avenue and across the street from the new medical school campus.

"No one has contacted me about a master plan," Estrada said. "I know some big changes are coming in the future."

Estrada wants to expand his strip shopping center and possibly remodel his apartment building to attract medical students. He'd consider selling his properties, "depending on the offer" even if it meant closing his pharmacy, now run by his two sons and granddaughter, he said.

Rick Francis, vice chairman of the Medical Center of the Americas Foundation board, a member of the Texas Tech University Board of Regents, and board chairman at Bank of the West, said, "It's not appropriate for us to call people and wave them off" their own development plans in the area around the new Texas Tech medical school. The area "will find its highest and best use. We're trying to provide the vision and some seed money to encourage different organizations and components to locate there."

The master plan will demonstrate the highest and best use for the area, Francis said, and "if people follow it, it will develop out more naturally and with the highest values realized."

Vic Kolenc may be reached at vkolenc@elpasotimes.com, 546-6421.

For more information: www.ttuhsc.edu/elpaso

Master plan

 The Medical Center of the Americas Foundation has hired two firms to do a 30- to 35-acre master plan for the area surrounding the new Texas Tech University medical school in Central El Paso.

 The firms are Lee Burkhart Liu, a Marina del Rey, Calif., architectural firm specializing in planning and designing health-care facilities, and The Camden Group, a health-care consulting firm in El Segundo, Calif.

 The foundation has begun a campaign to raise $1 million to pay for the $700,000 master plan and foundation operational costs.