Across the street, a children's hospital opened earlier this year, as did an adjacent women's hospital within a recently renovated county hospital.

Thus, in ways large and small, a sizable medical complex is emerging in El Paso, a high-desert city of 649,000 people along the border with Mexico and New Mexico.

Political, business and nonprofit leaders reached a consensus more than 10 years ago that educating medical students, treating patients and exploring biotechnology are essential to the future well-being of this area's people and economy. Several hundred million dollars — from local tax proceeds, legislative appropriations and philanthropic donations — have flowed into the effort.

Probably the singular thing here was to have a very consistent message that this is the most important thing to us," said Woody Hunt, a businessman and philanthropist who helped organize a 1998 economic summit that focused attention on the health care field following the collapse of the garment industry, which had been an economic mainstay.

Hunt added, "You've got to have vision. You've got to be organized. You've got to be patient."

El Paso's experience could offer lessons for efforts in Austin to land a medical school and expand the capital city's footprint in health care. The industry accounts for nearly a fifth of the nation's economic output.

After waxing and waning for years, efforts got a major boost last year when the University of Texas and its governing board formally declared a goal of establishing a medical school.

State Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, is leading a panel of university administrators, elected officials, hospital executives and others pursuing a 10-point wish list that also includes a new teaching hospital, a comprehensive cancer treatment center, expanded mental health services and upgrades at the Travis County medical examiner's office — all to be achieved within 10 years.

El Paso has realized many similar goals, but challenges remain — especially in securing state money for the medical school and attracting biotech companies.

The Foster School of Medicine, a unit of the Texas Tech University System's Health Sciences Center, is in many ways the jewel of what officials have dubbed the Medical Center of the Americas, a public-private complex east of downtown that could eventually encompass 440 acres. The school seated its first class in 2009.

A Texas Tech nursing school opened in a leased building downtown two years later and will eventually move to the medical complex. Longstanding elements of the complex include Texas Tech medical clinics in various specialties, a state-run psychiatric hospital, the El Paso County coroner's office and the county hospital, University Medical Center of El Paso.

Planning is under way for a graduate school of biomedical sciences as well as a public-private research park that officials hope will spawn biotech startups and clinical drug trials. In February, the City Council earmarked $3.2 million a year in fees paid by electric utility customers for nurturing the research park and other life science initiatives.

Texas Tech Chancellor Kent Hance said a crucial step was the formation by local civic and business leaders of the Medical Center of the Americas Foundation, a nonprofit group helping to coordinate development of the medical complex.

"It shows the commitment of local people," Hance said. "It helps you get organized and get funding."

El Paso's medical portfolio is expanding in other ways as well.

A $60 million health sciences and nursing building opened at UT-El Paso in 2011, the same year that ground was broken for the $966 million William Beaumont Army Medical Center, an eight-building complex scheduled to open in 2016 at Fort Bliss, one of the largest military installations in the country. The Foster school plans to send some students to the Army hospital for clinical training, said Kathryn Horn, the school's associate academic dean for student affairs.

Landing the medical school and other elements of the Medical Center of the Americas wasn't easy.

Squabbling over the size of the complex, the use of local tax dollars and other matters erupted in 2002. A $120 million bond issue for the children's hospital passed by just 768 votes out of more than 44,000 cast in a 2007 election held by the El Paso County Hospital District.

Although Texas Tech began sending some third- and fourth-year students from its medical school in Lubbock to El Paso for clinical training in 1973, the pieces of a full-fledged, four-year medical school didn't begin to come together here until the state Legislature authorized $40 million in bonds for a research building in 2001. Two years later, lawmakers approved $45 million for an education building.

The Foster school has seen setbacks at the Legislature as well. Lawmakers balked in 2005 at appropriating sufficient funds to hire faculty members and equip the school, despite exhortations from Gov. Rick Perry; funding was approved two years later. The Legislature declined in 2009 and again in 2011 to authorize bonds for numerous campus construction projects around the state, including two more buildings that officials of the Foster school say are needed for research and clinics.

"We've been able to achieve a dream for El Pasoans," said Jose Manuel de la Rosa, dean of the Foster school. "We have yet to figure out the long-term funding for this program. I don't think we can continue to count on the Legislature" to the same degree in the future.

Local funding, research grants, patient revenues and philanthropy must be continuing parts of the mix, de la Rosa said.

The Austin effort faces similar challenges as well as different ones. As in El Paso, the overarching task is to raise hundreds of millions in public and private dollars.

Central Health, Travis County's health care district, is studying how it might use its local tax proceeds, reserves and federal dollars to support a medical school or a new teaching hospital. It's unclear whether UT could count on any bond authorization from the Legislature in a time of tight budgets.

However, the UT System Board of Regents has an option not available to Texas Tech: tapping the multibillion-dollar Permanent University Fund for a loan or cash, or a combination of the two. The fund is constitutionally restricted to certain institutions in the UT System and the Texas A&M University System.

Still another challenge is justifying a four-year medical school in Austin when the A&M Health Science Center has been given legislative approval — although not all of the funding it needs — to develop one about 25 miles away in Round Rock. Moreover, the UT regents have pledged to develop a medical school in South Texas.

To avoid playing favorites and incurring political wrath, officials are pursuing the Austin and South Texas schools simultaneously.

Like El Paso, Austin already has a thriving clinical program for third- and fourth-year medical students, with about 100 dispatched from medical schools in Galveston and Dallas to Seton Healthcare Family hospitals. Seton also has about 200 residents — recently minted doctors undergoing additional training.

UT officials say philanthropists are waiting to see a medical school in Austin move closer to reality before stepping forward. In El Paso, the political ties of business leaders, as well as their philanthropic donations, have proved to be important.

Hunt's family foundation gave $10 million to the Texas Tech nursing school. Paul L. Foster, executive chairman of Western Refining Inc., gave $50 million to the medical school that now bears his name. Rick Francis, executive chairman of WestStar Bank, established an endowed chair for the medical dean.

Francis is a Texas Tech regent and former chairman of the regents. Foster is a UT regent, and Hunt is a former UT regent. Regents are gubernatorial appointees.

"El Paso had always been out of sight, out of mind with the Legislature," said Foster, who moved to El Paso in 2000. "We had to figure out how to get appointments to important boards in the state to have a better relationship and a better role.

"That's been a lot easier since we've had the same governor the whole time. A number of us have a really good relationship with the governor," hosting fundraisers for Perry and attending his fundraisers in other cities, said Foster, who has donated more than $400,000 to Perry over the years.

El Paso Mayor John Cook said the evolving medical complex is the city's most important long-term priority. A close second is lifting UT-El Paso into the ranks of the nation's top research universities, he said. The UT and Texas Tech campuses collaborate in various ways.

"We work with biomedical engineers at UTEP because they don't have patients and we don't have engineers," said Charles Miller, associate dean for research at the Foster school.

Federal funding for research at the school has grown to $12.5 million annually from less than $1 million in 2009.

Miller said recruiting can be a challenge; El Paso, with a poverty rate nearly double the national average, lacks some of the cultural amenities of other big cities in Texas and elsewhere. But with too few doctors and a high rate of diabetes among a mostly Hispanic population, El Paso offers an opportunity for scientists and physicians to make a difference, he said.

Jillian Sanford, a third-year medical student who was seeing patients with a faculty member at the Texas Tech breast care center the other day, said she might well end up practicing in El Paso.

"I love the weather here," she said. "I love the people."

Contact Ralph K.M. Haurwitz at 445-3604

On June 14, 2011, City Council voted to dedicate 75 percent of franchise fees the city receives from El Paso Electric for development of MCA. The remaining 25 percent of franchise fees received from EPE will be used to support technology-based business or as a "deal-closing fund."

In the next three years, MCA will receive approximately $8.8 million. The first two payments will be sent out April 1 ($2 million) and Aug. 31 ($1 million). These funds are part of an agreement between the city and MCA.

Starting in fiscal year 2013 until the agreement's terms end in 2030, the city will pay MCA 75 percent of the money received from the franchise agreement.

Funds will be used to develop a biomedical area to go along with the Paul L. Foster School of Medicine, University Medical Center, the El Paso Children's Hospital (to be opened Tuesday), the Texas Tech University Health Science Center and other facilities.

In addition, the MCA Foundation now has the power to acquire land itself -- a more cost-effective initiative, according to city officials.

Last week, City Council waived the impact fund policy requirement restricting use of funds for land acquisition in the MCA area to just the city.

"This allows the MCA to do land acquisitions," said Mathew McElroy, deputy director of the city's development services.

With the waiver, the MCA Foundation can acquire land necessary for construction of the project, McElroy said

Planning and design for the Biomedical Tech Center is set to be finished within the 2013 fiscal year, he said.

Although the initial step will be to hire a director of impact fund projects, McElroy said this person will oversee all MCA projects.

As part of this agreement, MCA is required to demonstrate progress in the project.

Rodolfo "Rudy" Mata, chairman of the Medical Center of the Americas Foundation board, said it is MCA's intention to be transparent with its plans and accounting of the impact funds under use.

Mata said the MCA's goal is not only to promote growth within its campus but in the community's economic development.

"We want to create a robust biotech industry that would maximize the region's research development and commercialization potential focusing on the region's special health needs and demographics," he said.

Emma Schwartz, president of the MCA Foundation, thanked the city for its support and visionary plan.

"We are working with the best professionals to make sure that we deliver the best product to you," Schwartz told council members last week.

As part of the impact fund policy, the University of Texas at El Paso will receive a portion of that 25 percent of franchise fees from the city over the next six years. This will help UTEP establish a Regional Cyber and Energy Security (RCES) Center to test and certify alternative energy products and systems.

The city will pay UTEP more than $3.4 million during a six-year contract.

The center will be a place to develop methods to secure commercial and energy systems in West Texas and Southern New Mexico against cyber-attacks, equipment failures and natural threats, said Ralph Martinez, director of energy initiatives at UTEP.

Utility companies do not invest enough resources into cyber-security, he said.

"Without the proper protection, system failure could create havoc in a community when you think of medical, business, manufacturing and education," Martinez said. "A significant disruption could endanger the population and cost billions of dollars."

The center is expected to create 85 jobs over the next six years.

Aileen B. Flores may be reached at aflores@elpasotimes.com; 546-6362.

Maybe it's a pediatrician thing, but Dr. Bradley Fuhrman puts people at ease and exudes the feeling that everything's OK.

But the months leading up to the opening of the 122-bed El Paso Children's Hospital and the arrival of patients this week have been crazy.

Just last week there was a major state inspection, before which very little could be moved in and after which everything has to be moved in - fast.

Fuhrman, 65, isn't tall or imposing in any way. In the world of pediatrics, however, he is a giant.

Yet in the halls of the children's hospital, people describe him as humble.

The title of physician-in-chief at the new hospital makes him the top doc there. He is also a professor and the head of the Pediatrics Department at Texas Tech's Paul L. Foster School of Medicine.

His base salary as physician-in-chief is $348,000 and he is paid an additional $100,000 in his capacities as a department head and professor.

Titles don't impress everyone, including a lot of doctors. What awes them, though, is that Fuhrman is board certified in three pediatric subspecialties - cardiology, perinatal medicine and critical care. He holds or shares patents on 11 medical devices and has patents pending on two others.

And he wrote "the" book on pediatric critical care, titled, appropriately, "Pediatric Critical Care."

Now in its fourth revision, the 1,740-page text sells for close to $300 and is considered the bible in that specialized field of medicine.

Fuhrman graduated from New York University's School of Medicine in 1971 and did his residency at the University of Minnesota School of Medicine.

He was critical care specialist at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine for six years before moving to Buffalo, N.Y., where he was chief of pediatric critical care at the city's children's hospital and professor of pediatrics and anesthesiology at the state university there.

His wife, Lynn Hernan, is also a pediatric critical care specialist. She will teach at the medical school and work at the hospital.

Asked how long he might stay in El Paso, Fuhrman answered, "I have two young children in the house, a 7-year-old and 9-year-old, so it will be a while before they want to move again. And, right now I feel as though I could keep working indefinitely."

He spoke with El Paso Inc. about bringing more doctors to El Paso, medicine's role in economic development, and what's special about this children's hospital.

Q: The children's hospital was inspected last week by Texas State Health Services. How did it go?

It went perfect. They liked everything.

Q: Was that the final hurdle before moving things in?

It wasn't the final hurdle, but it was the essential hurdle to identify it as a fully functional children's hospital. We're still in the process of making sure things are set up so the patients will have everything that they need and that everything's fully functional.

We're now approved to go ahead with that.

Q: Are there other inspections coming up?

The big inspection will be the Joint Commission, which will come in sometime in the first two weeks after we've opened.

Q: So the hospital will be open for business on Tuesday, Valentine's Day, as planned?

Yes, we'll open on the 14th.

Q: How many children's hospitals have you opened like this?

This is the first one.

Q: How is this children's hospital different from others?

This is a hospital that's being developed for the children of the area at the wishes of the community that will be a free-standing, separately licensed, that will be not-for-profit and will serve all comers who have need, all patients whether they are well-to-do or uninsured.

We'll roll out as a completely independent hospital with its own board of trustees.

So those things are really exceptional. The general rule of thumb for the times is that children's hospitals are rolled into other hospitals or into larger provider systems, which enables them to offer cradle-to- grave coverage. That's really an insurance issue more than anything else - a business proposition.

This one is purely for the children.

Q: What do you mean by cradle-to-grave in the context of insurance?

Hospital systems become part of provider networks. They sell contracts to employers for their employees that offer them health-care coverage. It's advantageous to cover the whole family, so they call it cradle-to-grave because it goes from infancy to retirement and beyond.

That kind of coverage is the primary coverage that insurance companies want to sell. So the motivation has been to move children's hospitals into networks that offer those kinds of services.

In this case, they've done pretty much the opposite. They've created an environment that will be perfect for children where decisions will be made based on what is best for the children and not on what is best for the corporation or what the needs of adults are.

Q: This hospital is a private, non-profit institution that will be in partnership with a public medical school and a public county hospital. How usual is this arrangement?

It's very unusual. There are excellent freestanding children's hospitals in this country. Most of them though either have been rolled into a larger arrangement or are borne into another arrangement.

In this case, they've deliberately set out to establish something that is especially for children.

Q: What difference will the Obama administration's health care reform act make for the children's hospital if the requirement that everyone be insured survives legal challenges?

I think overall it's in the hospital's best interest for everyone to be insured. That will be beneficial in terms of paying for coverage. If you spend $1,000 to provide services to a patient, one way or the other those dollars come out of the funding for the hospital.

So if they're not funded under an insurance program, then ultimately they will press the hospital to use other resources to cover them. One way or the other, they will be paid for, whether there's Obamacare or not.

The idea of health-care insurance from a patient point of view is that allows you to get timely treatment so that the patient can receive the best care and come out of their illness in their best condition, able to achieve their potential.

Q: With your expertise and history, you could probably be working anywhere. You were at the children's hospital in Buffalo. What made you decide to come here?

It was the opportunity. This is a time when amazing things are happening to El Paso. You're getting a full-blown, four-year medical school, which will bring new doctors to the residency program and to the community. You're getting a new children's hospital that will raise the bar for health care all across the city of El Paso.

Whether people come to the children's hospital or not, it will improve the care of children all across El Paso.

It's a wonderful opportunity; I couldn't resist it.

Q: Tell us about some of medical devices you've created that are used around the world.

Probably the best-known thing that I have worked on is a catheter for draining fluid from around the lung or the heart and that can present as a life-threatening problem.

I developed that more than a decade ago, and it's been heavily utilized and now benefits a very large number of patients every year. That's been very rewarding for me.

It grew out of my clinical work. So it's an example of what can happen when a person in an academic practice has the time to turn their ideas into something that can service a wider population base. It's the kind of technology development that the children's hospital will promote for this area.

Q: Do you think this kind of setting will attract research, medical device manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies?

This should be attractive. It's going to be a large, new enterprise. There are people here interested in promoting new developments in health care and there are people who are interested in investing in it.

There's synergy with Juárez because Juárez is an excellent site for manufacturing and El Paso is an excellent site for prototyping and for development of new devices. So there are good reasons to consider a location like this.

Q: How long might you stay with the children's hospital? Are you making a long-term commitment?

I would probably stay here until I retire, provided this moves forward and is successful. My contract is a four-year contract, I believe. I would certainly fill out this four years and probably another four years if that looked like it was good for both me and the area.

Age has a lot to do with how your own health is and how you feel. I have two young children in the house, a 7-year-old and 9-year-old, so it will be a while before they want to move again. And right now I feel as though I could keep working indefinitely. So I'm not planning to retire any time soon.

Q: Some members of the medical community are concerned that the pediatricians and specialists who have been recruited will leave when their contracts are up. What do you think?

I'm new here, so I don't have a real insight into that. But I'm hoping in the development of the pediatric department that people would want to be here long term to help develop their careers, the department and the services for children. I don't see it as a short-term venture.

Q: Another concern is that the salaries for these new doctors are too high and may be unsustainable in the long run for a hospital that doesn't have tax revenues coming in. Does that worry you?

I don't think that this medical school or this hospital is offering salaries that are greater than the salaries you would find at other hospitals in the area.

Our effort right now is to get the best people for the needs of the community, and the fact that we're recruiting for a hospital that hasn't opened its doors does mean that we have to make a somewhat greater investment than we will have to make five years from now in terms of recruitment. But we're not above market for El Paso.

Q: More pediatricians and specialists will mean fewer children leaving El Paso for treatment. What areas will still require out-of-town trips and how do you see that changing?

There are a large number of reasons to leave El Paso right now to get health care and we think we can eliminate most of them. A good example is cardiac surgery.

There is not a pediatric cardiac surgeon in El Paso. There should be a pediatric surgery program, but that will take years to develop because all of the infrastructure that you need to have.

Q: Other examples?

Neurosurgery. But we may eliminate the need for a child to leave for neurosurgery within the next several months. Gastroenterology, perhaps, by July. In oncology, we've already eliminated the need to leave El Paso for pediatric oncology care.

We think that we will hire perhaps four dozen subspecialists in various areas of children's care over the next year. It depends on who you find and who you can entice to come live here.

But we've just recruited four pediatric anesthesiologists who can keep a child comfortable and alive during complex operations despite the fact that they have a small airway and childlike or infantile reflexes and cardiovascular system.

There are no other pediatric anesthesiologists in El Paso, a city of almost 800,000. So this is a big step forward. It's infrastructure. It will make it possible to do neurosurgery, cardiovascular surgery and general pediatric surgery with greater safety.

Q: Has your presence here and your reputation contributed to the hospital's ability to recruit additional physicians?

Recruitment is moving forward, so I suppose I would take some credit for it. But I'm certainly not the centerpiece of it.

The centerpiece is the new hospital. The new hospital is bringing more bang for the buck into this community than anything I am aware of for the last 50 years.

It will be very attractive to physicians who are mission driven and want to provide services to children.

Q: What impact will the children's hospital have on economic development in El Paso?

It will create good jobs, not just for physicians, but also for people who are taking care of children, such as pediatric nurses and pediatric technicians of one type or another.

It will create opportunities for entrepreneurial advances. It will be attractive to employers bringing in young people for good jobs who require that their children have a good place to go when they get sick.

It will be an engine for economic development in El Paso and the region. The money spent on health care at El Paso Children's Hospital will mostly go into salaries.

And that money will go through the system again in El Paso, and you will see it in the department stores and grocery stores.

Q: How does it feel to be a part of the opening of this hospital?

It's a marvelous opportunity because so much is going to happen that will benefit the children of the region.

I couldn't ask for a better way to finish my career.

E-mail El Paso Inc. reporter David Crowder at dcrowder@elpasoinc.com or call (915) 534-4422, ext. 122 and (915) 630-6622.

There have probably never been more transportation projects started in El Paso than since Ted Houghton became the first El Pasoan to serve on the Texas Transportation Commission in 2003.

Houghton's colleagues say that's no coincidence. His position has enabled him to bring a little Far West Texas perspective to the commission.

And in October, Houghton was named chair of the commission - a position that was previously held by Deirdre Delisi, who joined the presidential campaign staff of Gov. Rick Perry.

The commission oversees the statewide activities of the Texas Department of Transportation.

With Houghton's voice on the commission and state Rep. Joe Pickett's voice on the Texas House Transportation Committee, El Paso may never have had more advocates for transportation in Austin than it does right now.

The timing couldn't have been much better, with El Paso facing a glut of transportation challenges at a time when competition is growing ever-more fierce over a shrinking pot of state transportation dollars.

Houghton's colleagues say his behind the scenes work was crucial in securing El Paso almost $80 million to widen Transmountain Road in West El Paso, part of an overall plan to complete El Paso's outer loop.

Meanwhile, the Far Eastside "spaghetti bowl" interchange is rising at the intersection of I-10 and Loop 375, a new entrance to UTEP is under construction, and new lanes are being added to the Border Highway.

Another project will build direct connectors where Zaragosa and Montwood intersect Loop 375 in Far East El Paso to help alleviate congestion at one of the most dangerous intersections in the city.

And, most recently, Houghton says he has probably found the $1 million needed to complete a feasibility study that is a key first step in bringing El Paso's historic trolleys back to Downtown.

Houghton's term on the transportation commission ends in February 2015, although he can be reappointed at the pleasure of the governor.

Q: Historically, Texas has not been a state that has supported mass transit; the emphasis is on asphalt and concrete. Do you think mass transit can play a larger role in Texas' future?

It has to. You have to look at other communities. You have San Antonio that's building a trolley system in the Downtown corridor. You have Houston now with light rail from the medical center to Downtown; it's basically a straight line, but now they are adding to it.

You've got the DART, which is now a huge system in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. They'll have a line that will go out to Dallas/Fort Worth Airport. There are like 5 to 6 million people in the metroplex area, and they understand you can't pave your way to prosperity - it's not going to work.

Q: You mentioned trolleys. Some would like to bring them back to Downtown El Paso.

That's going to get studied. As a matter of fact, I think we are going to give the MPO around $1 million to study a possible line between Downtown and the medical center and Downtown and UTEP.

Q: El Paso's influence on key boards and commissions has been growing in general. Paul Foster is a UT System regent, Rick Francis is a Texas Tech regent, Harold Hahn is on the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, Robert Brown has been on the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission, Larry Patton and Cindy Lyons are on the Finance Commission of Texas. What has brought about the change?

We've gotten involved. We haven't been saying "gimme, gimme, gimme," and we have coalesced around candidates. And without that I don't believe you would have a four-year medical school in El Paso.

We believe the economic opportunity for this generation and the next generation, permanent jobs in this community, will be around the Texas Tech medical school and now the nursing school and now, hopefully, the dental school. These are permanent high-paying jobs. When you look at why we did it, that was why we did it. That's going to be the answer beyond Fort Bliss, and it is going to be bigger.

Q: El Paso appears to be reaping rewards from having influence on these boards and commissions, but, as terms expire, do you see anybody else in El Paso poised to pick up the baton?

I think so. There's a younger crowd that is moving up and looking to take leadership roles. Some of those folks are involved in the Hispanic chamber, some are involved in the Paso del Norte Group. You have pockets of people who are doing the things they like to do to move this community forward.

Emma Schwartz at the Medical Center of the Americas Foundation - she has her own group down there that is involved. Like I said, there was a nucleus of us that got together and said we've got to get that medical school; and here we are - we have a four-year medical school. Now you are going to have the MCA down there which ties in University Medical Center, the teaching hospital.

Q: I imagine all you've been talking about, including the incredible Fort Bliss growth, is creating transportation challenges with the growth it is causing in El Paso.

Yeah. Spur 601, the one we built for $360 million for seven miles...

Q: $360 million?

Gov. Perry told the U.S. Department of Defense if you come, we'll build it to get soldiers in and out of Fort Bliss. Not only has it done that for the Army, now they're putting the new William Beaumont (Army Medical Center) at the corner of Spur 601 and Loop 375. The offshoot of that is Spur 601 is now an alternative route to the interstate.

Read the complete article at http://www.elpasoinc.com/news/q_and_a/article_56519cf0-1f91-11e1-9e69-001a4bcf6878.html.

"Specialization" has been added to the mix with the opening of the University Medical Center's Women's Pavilion and Outpatient Center. It's to be staffed by physicians who specialize in high-risk pregnancies.

There have been other stamps en route to MCA status.

"Land" was donated for Texas Tech's four-year medical school adjacent to the UMC campus.

"The Paul L. Foster School of Medicine" on that Tech campus is up and running.

"Philanthropy" is a stamp. Private money and gift donations have been important to keep the trek going.

Land for the "research" MCA feels is essential in treating border-related diseases has been acquired. The city recently leased more than 11 acres near Texas Tech/UMC as a lure for attracting research companies.

Now comes the "specialization" for women, followed by more "specialization" when the El Paso Children's Hospital part of the new 10-story building opens in February.

We have long been undeserved when it comes to specialist physicians.

Now we have a four-year medical school, plans for a nursing school on the campus, a revitalized UMC, five floors of the Women's Pavilion and Outpatient Center -- and next up is five floors of the El Paso Children's Hospital right above.

It remains a long-range plan to be recognized as the premier hub for treating and researching border-related diseases.

But in the past five years, we have moved quickly.

Next up? The expanded nursing program, perhaps a pharmaceutical school, a dental school -- and of big importance, research companies to move onto the campus.

Today, a Women's Pavilion has been checked off the to-do list.

University Medical Center of El Paso will unveil its first women-only hospital at 11 a.m. today at University Medical Center, 4815 Alameda. Public tours of the facility will run until 2 p.m.

Housed on the first five floors of the 10-story east tower, the $103 million Women's Pavilion and Outpatient Center will feature 90 private rooms, three operating suites and two nurseries. Outpatient services, situated on the first floor, will include a physical rehabilitation center, a chemotherapy and infusion center for cancer treatments, a laboratory and an imaging center.

The first floor, servicing outpatient care, is expected to open in the second week of November. The rest of the building, consisting of the women's labor, delivery and post-delivery services, will open at a later date. The hospital will be staffed by specialists such as urologists, gynecological oncologists, obstetricians, gynecologists and physicians who specialize in high-risk pregnancies.

"This is an area that is just for women and focuses on women's issues," city Rep. Emma Acosta said. "Currently, most women may go to a regular hospital. What we're seeing right now is the evolution of that whole area (Central El Paso) and how it's catering more and more to the individuals in our community."

Plush armchairs, flat-screen televisions and semi-private areas for chemotherapy treatment can make patients receiving treatment more comfortable.

"Right now, our patients are receiving chemotherapy infusion inside of a trailer outside of a parking lot," said Edward Lightbourn, spokesman for the medical center. "It's cramped in there and there aren't any windows, so this will be a better place. Family can come in with them as well."

Expectant mothers and their families will be accommodated with large delivery and private recovery rooms, complete with several drawers for personal items, a desk, flat-screen TVs and personal bathrooms.

On the fourth floor, a nearby nursery allows recovering mothers and their newborns to stay closer together to create a greater bond between mother and child.

For patients or doctors seeking a moment of peace, a meditation room, complete with a running fountain and warmly painted images on the walls and ceiling, is available on the first floor. Well-wishes and sentiments can be written and inserted into several paintings that line the room's walls.

In addition to its specialized services, the Women's Pavilion and Outpatient Center will have a good economic impact, Acosta said.

"The medical field is just booming, and this is a positive for our economic development," Acosta said, "because with every doctor that comes in, they bring five to seven staff people that we need. Its opening will bring in jobs."

The opening of the Women's Pavilion and Outpatient Center is the first phase of unveiling the rest of the wing, which will hold the El Paso Children's Hospital.

Officials expect that part of the wing, which will be located on the remaining five floors above the Women's Pavilion, to open in February 2012.

Alex Hinojosa may be reached at ahinojosa@elpasotimes.com; 546-6137.

An established research center is a main component as we take steps to become the foremost hub for studying and treating health problems indigenous to life on the southern border.

Achieving that will give El Paso its third large economic driver. Trade with Mexico and Fort Bliss lead the way at present. The University of Texas at El Paso is also a considerably large player.

Last week City Council gave El Paso a good booster shot toward that endeavor. It agreed to lease an 11.7-acre parcel of land it owns in Central El Paso to entice biomedical companies to step under the overall umbrella we call the Medical Center of the Americas.

Pieces have already begun fitting together. This parcel is in the vicinity of the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, University Medical Center and the soon-to-open El Paso Children's Hospital.

This biomedical park is located between Interstate 10 and Texas Tech, which is home to the Paul L. Foster School of Medicine and is working toward a major expansion of its nursing school.

This lease, for 100 years, is another step the city has taken in its MCA strategy. Earlier it voted to help develop the medical center by using part of the franchise fees, some $3.3 million, it gets from El Paso Electric.

Facilities, such as the hospitals and the schools, are the footprints needed to become the hub of border-related health care. But to become the true, recognized Medical Center of the Americas, there must be a large cluster of research companies to go with them.

This biomedical park is a good fit in our goal of being the top center for not only caring for, but researching, U.S.-Mexico border health issues.

To celebrate, Kent Hance, chancellor of the Texas Tech System, was in El Paso Monday to meet the school's inaugural class.

With classes now under way at Texas Tech's Gayle Greve Hunt School of Nursing in El Paso, the hope is that Texas Tech can now follow through with its promise to do the same with the Paul L. Foster School of Medicine, making it a stand-along institution.

Back in 2009, Hance made the blockbuster announcement that the regional campus in El Paso was to become a full-fledged health sciences university, independent from Texas Tech Health Sciences Center in Lubbock. The next step was naming a local president but, almost two years later, that has not happened.

To send a message, local philanthropist and businessman Woody Hunt says he put up $1.5 million to establish a presidential endowed chair. Last October he rolled those dollars into the $10 million donation made by the Hunt Family Foundation that kick started the creation of the stand-alone nursing school.

"The importance of having a president here hasn't changed," Hunt says.

Nearly 40 students began classes at the nursing school in the old JDW Insurance building at 415 E. Yandell on Aug 24.

"I told them I am going to come speak to them when the nursing school celebrates its 50th anniversary," Hance says. "And they all kinda looked at me like ‘I don't think this guy is going to do that.' But I may surprise them."

Hance is a classic Texan with a measured drawl, manners and a sense of humor that's as dry as the land, leaving one to wonder whether he is joking or not.

Call him, and his phone plays the Texas Tech fight song.

A legendary West Texas politician, Hance is known as the only person to ever beat George W. Bush in a political campaign. In 1978, Hance defeated the man who would become president in a 1978 congressional race.

In 1981, Hance authored and won passage of former President Ronald Reagan's tax bill in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Before becoming the third chancellor of the Texas Tech University System in 2006, Hance was a partner with Hance Scarborough, an Austin law firm.

He has a bachelor's degree in business administration from Texas Tech University and graduated from the University of Texas School of Law in 1968.

Hance is a native of Dimmitt, Texas. He and his wife have five children and seven grandchildren.

In an interview with El Paso Inc., Hance talks about the need for a stand-alone med school in El Paso, what education has to do with the "Texas miracle," and why Texas Tech is going to be in a tough position if more education cuts are made next in the legislative session.

Q: What is Texas Tech's vision for El Paso, at this point?

The vision is that we will have a separate health sciences center. It will be a separate component from the health sciences center in Lubbock, and we hope to have that done in 2013 in the legislative process.

Q: But is there support in Lubbock for a stand-alone campus?

It's strong. By having a separate health sciences center, it puts more pressure on the delegation from El Paso to really make sure they get funding here. It takes some pressure off Sen. Duncan. The board of regents, they have been very supportive. One of the reasons we were able to get this passed in 2007 is the fact that we already had third- and fourth-year medical students here. It was not going to be as expensive than if you'd gone to some other community and just started from scratch.

Q: But a key component of creating a stand-alone campus here is for it to have its own president. When might that happen?

Well, if it gets passed in the Legislature in 2013, then it would happen immediately after that. The whole thing on the separate health sciences center in El Paso is something the board of regents is going to have to make one of its priorities, and they have been very supportive. They are going to be making their priorities in 2012 for what will come up in 2013.

Q: At one point, a major El Paso donor made a $1.5 million pledge that was essentially contingent on a president being named here.

Some money that was given in the past, I think there was some contingency on that. It is a goal that we want to do. El Paso wants to do it, Lubbock is not opposed to it, but the board wants to make sure it is done right. They will make the decisions on the exact way that that policy is carried out.

Q: Does the vision also include a school of dentistry in El Paso?

We will continue to push for a school of dentistry and also schools of allied health and public health. We are going to be doing all of those. And within allied health, you're looking at physical therapists, occupational therapists, so we feel like there is a bright future.

One of the dreams that I have is that El Paso will be a major medical center between Houston and Los Angeles. With the growth that we have in this area - you look at the metropolitan area and you're looking at more than 2 million people here in El Paso and Juárez - so there is definitely a need, and I think we will be able to meet that need.

Q: How close is El Paso to having a dental school?

We are in the process. We will have to go in front of the coordinating board at some point in time and go through the legislative process.

Now, will that be in 2013? I don't know. If the economy doesn't improve by the next legislative session, probably not. It might be in 2015. It is an obvious need. There's not a dental school in the western part of the state. El Paso really wants one and there is a big demand.

Q: What is the vision for Texas Tech's budding architecture school in El Paso? I understand they are moving into a new building shared by El Paso Community College.

What we've done with El Paso Community College is set up a program that allows anyone who is going to El Paso Community College to take architecture classes at Texas Tech, so that when they graduate from El Paso Community College with their associate degree, the can get their architecture degree from Texas Tech.

That is big on our list. We've got one of the best architecture schools in the country.

Q: Is there anything to a rumor about a new veterinary school?

Well, that's something that's been looked at for some time. They were authorized by the legislature back in the ‘70s and that ran out. A&M has always opposed Tech getting a vet school, but there is only one vet school in the state, and they have tremendous demand; it is easier to get into a medical school now than it is into vet school. That's because there is such a limited number of slots. They take 125 to 135.

Q: Major cuts were made to education this legislative session. I understand that Texas Tech may have been harmed the most.

We really weren't. We had cuts within the system of $67 million. Texas Tech had right at $30 million total. They were tough cuts, but we could see that coming ahead of time.

So starting about two years ago, we started working to make sure there were certain positions that we did not fill when they came open. We also increased the size of the classes at the undergraduate level. Some of the classes may have had 30 students, and we have increased that to 40. It is tough. Can we do it again? It'll be really tough if we have to. I am hoping the economy improves, and we don't go through another session like we did last time.

If we do, the thing that is so important for the members of the Legislature to understand is that, of all the agencies in the state of Texas, higher education provides more return for investment than anything else. We turn out people who have college degrees, have medical degrees, nursing degrees, and they make money. They pay taxes. They make money for the state.

Two years ago, when we had to make 5 percent cuts, everybody was going to make 5 percent cuts, each agency. Then they exempted welfare, and transportation, prisons. All of a sudden, our 5 percent, which would have been 12 percent of the budget, became 41 percent of the budget.

And so, in the regular session, I really stressed that we needed to make sure that higher education didn't take an unfair cut.

Q: With that political reality, does there need to be a greater voice in Austin, and even in Washington, advocating for the importance of education?

I agree that there needs to be a greater voice. The chancellors in the state of Texas, we have had several meetings and all of us have been on the same page on trying to push and promote our education because it is so important.

Q: The national spotlight has been on Texas of late with Gov. Rick Perry on the campaign trail touting the "Texas miracle." Do you think higher education had a role in it?

I feel like all higher education has contributed. We are graduating more people in the last three years then we have ever graduated before. We are at almost 32,500 students right now. When I got there we were at 26,000. So we are closing the gaps, and at Texas Tech, we were able to do that while increasing research standards. It's hard to increase the standards and increase the numbers, but we have been able to do that. The other undergraduate programs across the state, including UTEP here, they have also increased their numbers and have increased their research.

Q: Given the recent cuts, though, is there enough support for higher education in Texas these days for the state to continue to be a growing powerhouse?

We cannot continue to make the kind of cuts the Legislature made and be a powerhouse in higher education, nationwide. We've got to work it out some way, and hopefully the economy will improve. But the discretionary spending really gets into higher education more than anything else because you've got Medicaid, you know that you have to spend money on that, you've got public education, transportation, prisons and most of those have some kind of formula set aside where it is already set.

So it gets down to the last bit of money to be spent - it's higher education. The result is that we get cut deeper than others.

Q: In general, then, what is the outlook for education in Texas?

There are two things. The outlook long-term is excellent. It's excellent because we have a vision of what we want the medical, the nursing, allied health and dental health schools to be.

Short-term, it's not as certain. We will survive short term, but the short term is really going to be determined by what happens money wise this next legislative session. So that is what concerns us. If we go through another session with drastic cuts, it's going to put us in a tough position throughout the system.

Q: On Tuesday, the Medical Center of the Americas Foundation's request to form a voluntary Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone, or TIRZ, goes before City Council. The TIRZ would encompass Texas Tech's health sciences center in El Paso. Will Texas Tech participate?

I'm not at liberty to say right now.

Q: What's significant about the celebration today?

Today, we celebrated the start of the first-year class of the Gayle Greve Hunt School of Nursing. I wanted to be down here to speak to the students who are in that inaugural class. That will be the first class in this school of nursing, and this is a very historic day. So I came down to talk to the students and told them, "Fifty years from now, when you drive by, you can tell your children or grandchildren I was in the first class at that nursing school."

I also told them, I am going to come speak to them when the nursing school celebrates its 50th anniversary. And they all kinda looked at me like "I don't think this guy is going to do that." But I may surprise them.

You know, nurses are on the front line. A doctor goes in and he sees the patient once or twice a day and the nurse is there at all times. They are the ones, when there is a complaint large or small, who've got to monitor that complaint. So it is a very important profession, and we have such a shortage of nurses.

Texas was short 20,000 nurses last year. There is just a tremendous need. Look at the growth we are going to have at the nursing school and the medical complex and, hopefully, the health sciences center here in El Paso someday.

We are turning out nurses, UTEP's turning out nurses, and other places, but even with all that we are still going to be a little shy of what we are going to need. With what we are doing here in El Paso, I don't think we will be able to get enough nurses for what we need much less for other areas of the state.

We want to have a strong nursing school. We feel like we have the right people in place. And with the medical school being endowed by Paul Foster and the nursing school by the Hunts, the future is bright. We'll be adding allied health, we'll be adding dentistry at some point, but most of all we want to be able to have our own health sciences center.

You can find the article titled “Kent Hance: Texas Tech Chancellor. Waiting for a president in El Paso” at http://www.elpasoinc.com/news/q_and_a/article_d7512588-fe89-11e0-8632-001a4bcf6878.html.

The El Paso City Council this week took another step to incubate biomedical companies at the Medical Center of the Americas.

The medical center is a major pillar in the council's economic-development strategy.

The council on Tuesday voted to lease an 11.7-acre parcel to the Medical Center of the Americas Foundation to be used for a biomedical research park. The council also took the first step to create a tax-increment reinvestment zone at the medical center to allow the foundation to lease city land at below-market rates.

The council has already voted to dedicate a hefty portion of the franchise fees it gets from El Paso Electric to the development of the medical center.

The lease, which with options to renew for 100 years, would allow the foundation "to act as our agent and develop that land," said Matthew McElroy, the city's deputy director for planning, who also is running the Economic Development Division while the city looks for a permanent head.

The Medical Center Foundation will pay the city $1,000 a year or 10 percent of profits --whichever is greatest -- for the parcel. As a term of the lease, construction of an 80,000 square-foot, life-science research building must start within 36 months, and a certificate of occupancy must be issued within 72 months.

Normally, tax-increment zones are used to sequester tax dollars to redevelop an area deemed to be economically distressed. But the lands at the medical center are not taxed, so there will be no money to sequester. McElroy said the city is seeking the designation to allow it to lease land below market value, as it is doing with the medical center foundation.

"This is the first thing we had to have happen in order for the biomedical park to take shape," said Emma W. Schwartz, executive director of the foundation.

Her organization is getting other city help in developing the area, which includes the Paul L. Foster School of Medicine, the University Medical Center, the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center and a children's hospital to be opened next year.

The City Council in June voted to devote $3.3 million to developing the medical center. The money come from a franchise fee that costs an electric customer who pays $60 a month about 45 cents.

In deciding to invest so much in the medical center, the City Council rejected several other economic development ideas.

Marty Schladen may be reached at mschladen@elpasotimes.com; 546-6127.

El Paso is fortunate to have Dr. Bradley Fuhrman, a highly credentialed pediatric physician, as the first pediatrician-in-chief for El Paso Children's Hospital.

Not only is he credited by the Journal of American Medical Association as having literally written the book on caring for critically ill children, he invented the Fuhrman pigtail catheter now widely used to drain infection-caused air and fluid from around the lungs or heart.

Fuhrman's book is titled "Pediatric Critical Care." He is 65.

The $120 million, stand-alone hospital on the University Medical Center campus is due to open in February. It is a major footprint in the goal to make El Paso No. 1 in border-related health care and health research. It's a part of our growing Medical Center of the Americas vision.

And it will be the third major player on the MCA map, joining the expanding UMC and Texas Tech's new medical school that's located across the street.

Fuhrman said he chose El Paso, in part, because he can focus on hiring staff and purchasing equipment for treating children; there's no doubling of duties to consider the needs of adult patients.

His reach will also extend to the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center Paul L. Foster School of Medicine. There, he'll be chairman of pediatrics.

And he'll be teaching teachers.

"It (the job) was such a plum, I couldn't resist," Fuhrman said. "This is the opportunity for a home run, to put it all together and serve a population of almost a million to raise the bar for children's care in El Paso."

Larry Duncan, CEO of the El Paso Children's Hospital, said we have just landed "the father of pediatric critical care in this country."

Having Fuhrman here looks to be a major coup for EPCH, and for present and future partners in the growing Medical Center of the Americas.

And even though the utility pays the fees, the funds come from customers’ pockets, and go straight to the city.

When the El Paso City Council raised the franchise fee in 2005 from 2 percent to 3.25 percent of the utility’s gross revenues – or from $8.3 million a year to $15.5 million – the extra income went to balance the city budget, and citizen’s howled that it was a hidden tax.

El Paso Electric CEO David Stevens wouldn’t disagree.

“Any franchise fee is strictly a pass-through,” he told El Paso Inc. “It’s just a hidden tax, which is fine, but you can’t say you don’t want to raise taxes and then raise the franchise fee.

“It’s one and the same to the customer.”

Typically, for-profit utilities are charged franchise fees to compensate cities for using public rights-of-way, including streets, alleys and other public land where wires and pipes run above or below ground.

Looking for funds
Stevens’ comments came in response to questions about recent statements by newly elected District 8 city Rep. Cortney Niland.

She suggested in a published interview that the city needs to raise more money outside of property taxes, and that one place to start could be hitting up El Paso Electric for another franchise fee increase.

The current 4 percent fee is low when compared with a national average of 5 percent, she said.

The last increase in the electric company’s franchise fee occurred just last year, as part of a $17.1-million rate case settlement with the city in June 2010.

Then, at the behest of the electric company itself, City Council boosted the franchise fee from 3.25 percent to 4 percent.

That will cost ratepayers an extra $3.5 million to $4 million a year and is actually part of the rate increase to be paid El Paso Electric’s Texas customers.

The franchise fee will rise along with utility revenues, even as the percentage stays the same.

Increasing it again, as Niland suggests, would require the city to open a new rate case against El Paso Electric.

Asked to explain that, Niland started by saying, “I didn’t ever propose that the franchise fee be increased.”

She said she has taken on the task at City Council of looking for ways to increase revenues for the city.

“When you want to increase and provide better services, you have to find the money,” she said. “I’m charged with looking at every single angle … for new sources of income.”

Higher profits
She said she thinks the last year’s rate settlement should be re-evaluated in light of the latest quarterly earnings of El Paso Electric, showing a 12 percent rate of return – not the 10.125 percent allowed by the settlement and approved by the Texas Public Utility Commission.

Stevens has said the higher profits for the last quarter are easily explained by the fact that summer rates went up, while winter electric rates went down.

Niland said the electric company’s commercial and industrial rates are the highest in the state and that residential rates are second highest.

If the utility’s income is higher than called for, she said, the city should consider filing a new rate case against the company to force down both rates and profits.

“I don’t want to do anything that is going to hurt the ratepayer in this study,” she said. “My goal is to evaluate what was done a year ago. … My question is should that rate increase have been allowed?”

Although Stevens has likened franchise fees to taxes paid directly to the city, last year’s suggestion that the city increase the franchise fee by 19 percent came not from City Hall but from the electric company itself.

“The idea was generated by the electric utility in lieu of getting them to do an electric incentive rate or lower industrial rate, because the electric rates make us noncompetitive,” said El Paso city manager Joyce Wilson.

“Up to now, I’ve only seen one instance where that was actually the case,” she said.

REDCo, El Paso’s Regional Economic Development Corp., which the city pays to recruit businesses and industries, fully expected to be the major beneficiary of a franchise fee increase.

REDCo’s director of operations, Ken Farah, said the electric company’s idea was that REDCo would have a better chance to attract major industries with heavy electric demands if the city could offer additional incentives to “buy down” their electric bills.

Other Texas cities collect extra sales taxes to create economic development funds and use those monies to improve a standard package of property and sales tax breaks.

No rate discount
El Paso can’t increase its sales tax rate because it devotes the last half-cent it could have used to fund Sun Metro.

“The idea came from me,” said David Carpenter, El Paso Electric’s chief financial officer, of the franchise fee increase. “We’ve had people that said they’re interested in moving a company to El Paso and are looking for a rate discount.

“We can’t really give a rate discount, so we said let’s increase the franchise fee, put it in a dedicated fund and then we’ll use that fund if a customer … needs some extra incentive to come.”

Of the extra $17.1 million going to El Paso as a result of the higher rates that are part of last year’s rate settlement, about $3.7 million is the franchise fee.

“That nets us about $13.5 million,” Carpenter said.

To REDCo’s chagrin, City Council rejected the idea of creating an economic development fund and decided to bequeath 75 percent of the increase from the franchise fee to the Medical Center of the Americas Foundation.

That 440-acre campus takes in the new Paul L. Foster School of Medicine, the Children’s Hospital now under construction, the University Medical Center and other property that is mostly in public hands.

Emma Schwartz, president of the non-profit MCA Foundation, said they’re putting the finishing touches on a business plan.

Among other things, it will call for using the franchise fee revenue stream and other income to leverage a large sum of money to develop a research park on 13 acres of city property.

El Paso Inc. reporter David Crowder can be reached at dcrowder@elpasoinc.com or by phone at (915) 534-4422, ext. 122 and (915) 630-6622.

If she is successful in her mission to create a Medical Center of the Americas, which will require substantial community support, the payoff would include thousands of new jobs delivering cutting-edge health care to the region and medical science advances that, in many cases, target diseases suffered disproportionately by border residents.

Schwartz, president of the foundation responsible with getting the center off the ground, is overseeing the creation of a 50-year plan for a bio technology campus that would provide impetus for everything from pure medical research to the manufacture and distribution of locally developed medical treatments and equipment.

"It is creating the ability to take research from the bench to the bedside," said Lawrence Duncan, chief executive officer of El Paso Children's Hospital, whose medical staff is expected to participate in the venture.

"You get a nucleus that starts to draw more and more people toward it. (Then) it becomes more of a regional center than a local center, and because of where we're situated, it becomes international in nature," Duncan said.

A vision for the center was conceived nearly 15 years ago, and Schwartz acknowledges that some have come to think of it as fantasy.

"Some people thought it was a pipe dream, but now it's up and it's happening," Schwartz said.

The city of El Paso has dedicated about 440 acres for the campus and plans for the first building -- with 80,000 square feet of floor space -- are in the works, Schwartz said.

It will be situated near the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center and University Medical Center.

Focus groups targeting local businesses -- including banks, universities and utilities -- are being used to gather information for a detailed business model.

The plan is scheduled for completion in October, Schwartz said, and will be used to leverage funding.

"What we don't want to do is just have a real estate development where we build the building and just hope people come," Schwartz said.

So she must ensure that capital will be available to support startup businesses, that universities have commercializable research and even that appropriate plumbing and electrical infrastructure will be available for the high-tech research park.

The Medical Center of the Americas Foundation is already looking for tenants, Schwartz said, but so far there are "no letters of intent or leases."

"We're trying to be realistic, but still reach high," Schwartz said.

"It's a tightrope to walk."

That fine line has caused Schwartz sleepless nights. She does not want to limit the scope of the plan unnecessarily because of its immense potential. But if it becomes over ambitious, the whole thing could collapse. "If we fail, nobody else will try this again," Schwartz said.

Early conceptual work has received votes of confidence from the El Paso City Council.

In June, the council voted to increase the amount of land for the campus and to provide economic development funding for a 20-year period. In the first year, the foundation has access to about $3.3 million. The money comes from the city's franchise fee, which is paid by El Paso Electric ratepayers who live inside the city limits. The amount is expected to increase as El Paso grows.

"I just think it's the cleanest, most exciting opportunity for developing high-paying jobs and creating and attracting bioscience and technology companies to El Paso," said former city Rep. Beto O'Rourke, who voted with a 7-1 majority to allocate the money.

The biotechnology park is expected to bring together the borderland's medical, research, business and manufacturing components to create an economic engine more powerful than the sum of its parts. The list of possibilities suggested is broad and varied.

The plan would leverage private investment, including philanthropic donations that allowed Texas Tech to create both medical and nursing schools. Texas Tech, University Health Sciences Center and the soon-to-open Children's Hospital, will provide a nucleus expected to attract other medical ventures.

"The fact that they are thinking 50 years out in a very organized manner gives everybody a chance for input and to get their (visions) aligned," Duncan said.

"We're all very connected. We all have common infrastructure needs."

Medical research at the hospitals will provide opportunities for commercialization. But Schwartz said related research at the University of Texas at El Paso, New Mexico State University, Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez and other educational institutions also will provide ideas that can be turned into business ventures.

Streamlining the process for patenting and transferring academic work into the business world will help attract investors, Schwartz said. She hopes to find a common structure that local educational institutions will endorse.

That process could slow the exodus of locally trained professionals who leave the area for lack of opportunity.

"UTEP graduates more Hispanic engineers than just about anybody," O'Rourke said.

"And they also are exporting more Hispanic engineers than anyone. If we keep them here, then they can branch out and start their own companies."

And, as has been the case with other technology parks, when academics, entrepreneurs and doctors mix during lunch or hallway breaks on the Medical Center of the Americas campus, they are likely to find innovative cross-discipline solutions to stubborn problems.

Cross-border partnerships are also anticipated.

Manufacturing capabilities would be tapped in El Paso and in Juárez, which Schwartz said already has facilities that can produce sensitive, high-tech equipment.

"For far too long, the city's economic development has excluded consideration of Mexico," said city Rep. Steve Ortega, who voted to devote all the franchise fee money to the center.

And this approach to economic development provides a resilience to economic downturns, said Jim Valenti, University Medical Center's chief executive officer.

"The need for health care and the need for health-care science advances will always be there," he said.

Beyond the new businesses and jobs created, residents also are expected to find easier access to high-quality health care.

El Pasoans would have access to clinical trials involving the newest treatment approaches, including drugs and devices, some of which would be for diseases common to the border.

"The (medical center) has the potential to ... address the serious health disparities that exist in the border region," said U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas. "Improving access to quality health care along the border is a national concern because we cannot afford to have such a large segment of our population saddled with higher rates of diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and others."

The medical research park concept has worked in other cities.

Texas Medical Center in Houston, home to the MD Anderson Cancer Center, has been used as a model for the El Paso center.

The center started in 1945, and now sits on more than 1,000 acres with 162 buildings that house 42 government and nonprofit institutions, according to the center's website. It employs 93,500 people and has an annual regional economic impact of $14 billion.

Will it be the same in El Paso? "Yes and no," said Dr. Charles Miller, Texas Tech's associate dean of research. "The economic impact relative to the size will be similar."

Valenti agreed that the model is scalable.

"We don't have the population of Houston," Valenti said. "But it's going to take us half that time just because of the progress we've already made."

Schwartz, who is pregnant, jokes about the long-term nature of the project.

"I'm trying to coach the kid into taking over for me," she said.

Chris Roberts may be reached at chrisr@elpasotimes.com; 546-6136.

The initiative is designed to make the Sun City a biomedical hub, from specialty hospitals to medical research, to manufacturing and distribution of medical supplies. If the project takes off, it would inject money into the economy and create jobs with good pay.

At the heart of the Medical Center of the Americas are University Medical Center, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center and the new Children's Hospital. Those will serve as the base to attract numerous other medical operations, including ones that can commercialize research conducted at local universities.

The El Paso City Council recently dedicated more than $3 million annually to the project over a 20-year period, and agreed to provide 400 acres for a campus near University Medical Center that will hold everything from research to medical-treatment facilities.

Schwartz answered questions about the project for the El Paso Times.

Q In your public meetings on this project, what kind of response are you getting?

A People are excited, people are very excited. We are getting support from the neighborhoods. Some of them want to know if their grandmother's house is going to be safe. ... More than anything, people want to know how to participate. I don't really get many naysayers.

Q The first part of the project involved speaking with community stakeholders. What did you talk about?

A We wanted to talk about the different assets and challenges our community has and the vision we would want to have as a community for this technology park. (The foundation) can't drive this alone.

Q What needs to happen to make this work?

A We have to have a solid business plan to take to them, to the banks and everybody else. We have to show that we have a trained work force, that we have financing.

Q Has anybody signed up to occupy the technology park?

A We know that we have a few potential tenants, but no letters of intent or leases.

Q How does having University Medical Center, Texas Tech and the University of Texas at El Paso on board help this project?

A They have assets that make it attractive to other businesses.

Q What does it mean to have city funding?

A It's going to be a huge boon to us. With a lot of what we're doing here, there aren't a lot of funding mechanisms. ... It will help us leverage a lot of other sources of funding. ... It's a lot of money and a lot of confidence the City Council has put in us, which comes with a lot of scrutiny and a lot of responsibility.

Chris Roberts may be reached at chrisr@elpasotimes.com; 546-6136.

The funding comes from a $4 million grant through the University of Texas System Board of Regents for the Transformation in Medical Evaluation initiative. The grant will serve as a two-year pilot program to address challenges in high medical school costs and low Hispanic medical school enrollment.

Steven Lieberman, vice dean of academic affairs at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, said that Hispanics and African-Americans make up more than one-fourth of the U.S. population but only 7 percent of practicing physicians. Officials said the grants aims to provide more opportunities for Hispanic students to go to medical school.

Donna Ekal, associate provost for undergraduate studies at UTEP, said that during the next two years UTEP staff working under the grant will come up with ideas to eliminate repetitive undergraduate and medical school courses, without reducing the quality of education. The goal is to reduce about one or two years from the current eight years of undergraduate and medical school higher education.

"By shortening that time, that's one less year of cost to students," she said. 

Ekal said the pilot program will be conducted through a collaboration among the University of Texas at Brownsville, the University of Texas-Pan American, the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. She said if one of the University of Texas system schools can find a way to make the initiative work, then it could improve the experience of medical school across the state. 

"I'm so excited. I think this could be a real game changer," she said. 

Caylor Ballinger may be reached at cballinger@elpasotimes.com; 546-6133.

Another $1.2 million will be used to attract jobs from outside El Paso and to finance business incubators.

El Paso Electric ratepayers who live within city limits will foot the bill for the allocations. For example, 45 cents on a $60 electric bill goes to support economic development. It's known as a franchise fee.

The MCA is a good investment and should play a large part of the city's current and future economic development. The center already is going strong and includes Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, the Paul. L. Foster School of Medicine, University Medical Hospital, a children's hospital in the works and other facilities.

Also, officials are trying to develop a biomedical cluster that will be part of MCA.

It's a good and forward-thinking use for the money.

But there's something else interesting about this allocation.

The Regional Economic Development Corp. (and the city's economic development staff) wanted the money to finance industry "clusters" that would attract well-paying companies to the area.

Tuesday's 7-1 vote seems to be a repudiation of REDCo and its plans.

And could it perhaps indicate a bit of official frustration with the group's ability to bring in business?

We agree with city Rep. Steve Ortega, who said, "I'm betting on the MCA. I think this is where the community is going to reap the largest benefit."

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The funds -- earmarked for economic development -- are part of a franchise fee paid by El Paso Electric ratepayers within city limits. If such a customer gets a $60 electric bill, 45 cents goes to support the economic development fund.

Last month, the City Council rejected two competing plans to spend the $4.5 million a year that the fee is supposed to generate in each of the next 20 years. The plan that the council voted 7-1 to approve on Tuesday was a departure from both of them.

Both the city's economic development staff and the El Paso Regional Economic Development Corp. had proposed to use the money to create industry "clusters" in such sectors as alternative energy and attract well-paying companies that would invest heavily in the region.

The council's vote on Tuesday still allows money to be used for those purposes, but it reserves most of the money for the medical center, where officials are trying to develop a biomedical cluster to go along with the Paul L. Foster School of Medicine, the University Medical Center, a children's hospital to be opened next year, the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center and other facilities.

The idea for the Medical Center of the Americas stems from an economic summit in 1998, when city leaders decided that biomedical pursuits would be a good direction for the regional economy, Mayor John Cook said.

Emma W. Schwartz, executive director of the Medical Center of the Americas Foundation, said similar industry clusters have created thousands of good jobs in regions such as Salt Lake City; Memphis, Tenn.; and Boulder, Colo.

City Rep. Steve Ortega wanted the City Council to devote the entire economic development fund to the medical center.

"I'm betting on the MCA," he said. "I think this is where the community is going to reap the largest benefit."

City Reps. Emma Acosta and Susie Byrd wanted to use a quarter of the money for other purposes, such as a Hub of Human Innovation at the University of Texas at El Paso. The hub helps embryonic businesses get a start, and it has a program devoted exclusively to alternative energy companies.

Some money can also be used by the economic development corporation to close deals with companies interested in moving to El Paso.

The medical center and all other entities will have to make individual proposals for the funds and to sign contracts outlining terms under which they can be used.

City Rep. Eddie Holguin voted against the plan because he was against charging an economic development fee in the first place.

"That money should be given back to the ratepayers," he said.

Marty Schladen may be reached at mschladen@elpasotimes.com; 546-6127.

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"While we are truly humbled by this honor, I cannot say that I am surprised that others have taken notice of our team's hard work," said James N. Valenti, CEO and President of UMC.

The Paul L. Foster School of Medicine, part of Texas Tech's Health Sciences Center, stands to lose about $13 million, or 30 percent of its state money, under a budget approved by the House.

But Dr. Jose Manuel de la Rosa, the school's founding dean, is pinning his hopes on a different proposal from the state Senate that could be voted out of committee and released publicly this week.

Unlike most of the state's colleges and universities, the medical school does not get its $43 million through formula funding, which is being cut by 10 percent in the House budget. Instead, it receives funding through a line item in the budget.

"If we get treated as a special line item, the way every other line item is treated, we're going to have some serious problems," de la Rosa said. "It's not like we're asking for special treatment; we're just asking to be treated like all the other schools."

If nothing changes, de la Rosa said, the campus may have to lay off up to 99 employees, scale back programs and delay the university's goals for expansion.

"It's disheartening because we hold so much promise for addressing the health disparities along the border," de la Rosa said.

State Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, who heads the Higher Education Committee and sits on the Senate Finance Committee, said that so far no money has been added to health science centers, which she considers critical to developing doctors and fostering research that saves lives.

Zaffirini added a rider to the budget bill that would provide $51 million for the state's health science centers, but she warned that it is in a section considered the "wish list."

The medical school is not alone as it seeks relief from lawmakers who are cutting programs and services to cope with a budget gap of up to $27 billion.

Statewide, educators, doctors and advocates for the poor are anxiously awaiting the Senate's budget plan, which has long been touted as a kinder version of the House budget.

The more stringent budget, passed on a 98-49 vote in the Republican-dominated House, cuts money distributed to public schools through formulas by $8 billion, underfunds Medicaid by $6 billion, reduces higher education formula funding by more than $400 million and provides state aid for about 90,000 fewer students during the next two years.

Though not yet finalized, the Senate version is expected to include billions of dollars more. Zaffirini said the budget bill being crafted in committee is a significant improvement from its original form but is still not good enough.

"The Senate budget is awful, but the House budget is horrific, so it's just a range of negatives," Zaffirini said. She called the cuts so far "heart-wrenching."

"I mean, when your range of choices between the two is from bad to very bad, there is not much point to a discussion about looking for the silver lining," Zaffirini said.

The Senate is adding about $4.5 billion to Health and Human Services from its original proposal, but about $9.1 billion was needed simply to have a "bare-bones budget," Zaffirini said. The House budget shorted public education by at least $8 billion, and the Senate version could cut that by half. Proposed cuts to nursing homes are also restored in the Senate plan.

On top of cuts, neither plan covers increases in student enrollment and new Medicaid caseloads stemming from population growth.

Neither plan will be the final budget.

A conference committee made up of House and Senate members will ultimately hammer out the differences in each budget to reach a compromise.

"The Senate numbers will only go down," Zaffirini said, "and the question is how much and in what areas."

Eva DeLuna Castro, budget analyst for the liberal-leaning Center for Public Policy Priorities, said senators face barriers as they look for the money to pay for services without new taxes, as directed by the state's Republican leaders.

If they do come up non-tax revenue, they still have the challenge of trying to reach an agreement with the House, she said.

"They're not under any delusions that they're going to propose anything near what's needed," DeLuna Castro said. "They're just stuck with the House's unwillingness to do anything better."

The measures would also need to escape a veto by Gov. Rick Perry, who agreed to tap the state's $9.4 billion Rainy Day Fund for $3.2 billion last month to help close the current budget gap.

Perry last week declined to say what he would do if the Legislature sent him a budget for the next two years that uses more money from the Rainy Day Fund.

Asked whether he was working with lawmakers to find new forms of non-tax revenue, he said, "Look, I don't think Texans are looking for cute ways to keep from having to address the realities of difficult economic times."

Perry said voters sent a message in the last election that the budget should be balanced without raising taxes.

"What new forms of revenue scream out to me is we're going to raise your taxes and that is absolutely the worst message you can send to an economy when it's in a recession or just starting to come out of a recession," Perry said.

Zahira Torres may be reached at ztorres@elpasotimes.com; 512-479-6606.

But even when medical specialists are in short supply nationwide, people who recruit for the Texas Tech University Paul L. Foster School of Medicine, University Medical Center and El Paso Children's Hospital say they are finding highly qualified individuals who want to work in El Paso.

What is drawing doctors to the region?

"It's sort of a go-West-young-man mentality," said Charles Miller, chairman of the medical school's Department of Biomedical Sciences and associate dean for research. "That's critical, quite honestly."

The frontier, in this case, is represented by new opportunities in the medical field. University Medical Center is morphing into a research institution. The medical school was created two years ago. The children's hospital is scheduled to open in February 2012. And a nursing school is expanding.

"It is the second medical school in 25 years to open in the United States," said Jim Valenti, medical center CEO. "It allows physicians to create and design their departments."

One selling point for the right people, Miller said, is the unique patient population. Mexican and U.S. culture blends on an international border, providing unusual opportunities to study genetics, diabetes, communicable diseases and other areas that have been underrepresented in the professional literature.

"We built the research programs to address problems that are endemic to the region," Miller said. "It's a magnet of its own."

Some doctors relish working in a low-income community and teaching specialties to young doctors who might stay in El Paso, helping alleviate a chronic shortage of medical personnel.

Those rewards, for some, are more important than the money. Doctors interviewed for this story all said private hospitals offered higher salaries.

"We pay comfortably, but we don't pay obscenely high," Miller said. "We're at a big disadvantage as far as the perks. We don't even give a discount for people to send their kids to Texas Tech. It's a prima dona filter."

Unrelenting violence in Juárez usually tops the list of concerns.

"It certainly is in the forefront of people's minds if they're not familiar with the West Texas area," said Lawrence Duncan, children's hospital CEO. "When you tell the family you're going to El Paso, your mother's going to call and ask if you're crazy."

The solution, Miller said, is to bring people in for a visit.

"People are almost uniformly impressed," he said. "Once you find the right match, it's not a hard sell. It's largely about finding out where someone's heart is."

Here are short profiles of three of these doctors, hired in the past couple of years:

  Dr. Debabrata Mukherjee, 45, was recruited to lead the medical school's cardiovascular unit.

Mukherjee, who worked at the prestigious Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, has experimented with drug combinations to ease heart disease symptoms. Doctors now prescribe some of those cocktails.

He had never been to El Paso, but he watched the CNN reports on Juárez.

"I did do a little bit of digging, and I found out that El Paso was extremely safe," Mukherjee said.

Upon visiting the Sun City, he was reminded of his native Calcutta, India.

"We, culturally, have the close families," Mukherjee said. "It (El Paso) is a true melting pot. It's more open, more accepting than maybe many other areas of the United States."

He talked with medical school officials off and on for about a year before accepting the job.

"I had (salary) offers that were significantly higher, but this was a good match," Mukherjee said. "I've been very happy here."

What really sealed the deal, Mukherjee said, was was the opportunity to create a fellowship program, which provides three years of specialty training for doctors.

"It is very exciting to me trying to mold young minds and shape the future of cardiology," Mukherjee said. "Individuals can make a very real difference here. That is very gratifying."

  Two of Dr. Mark Francis' children were born in El Paso.

In 1987, Francis was the chief medical resident at Beaumont Army Medical Center. He worked with a woman there who would become his wife.

"We loved El Paso and thought it would be a great place to retire," said Francis, 55. "About two years ago, I found out El Paso was starting a medical school."

His youngest child was graduating from high school, and "all the stars seemed to be pointing in the direction of coming to El Paso," Francis said.

The prospect of working in a community starved for medical services revived the idealism he felt as a student.

"In particular, I was drawn to the idea of starting a fellowship program," Francis said. "We try to get people who will finish their training and settle in this part of the country. We want to help populate the community (with medical specialists). The area is underserved even for people who have insurance."

And helping build a new department -- his specialty is rheumatology, which focuses on arthritis and other such diseases -- "was a selling point, not a burden," Francis said.

"El Paso was not a hard sell for us," he said.

  Dr. Bert Johansson, 50, first visited El Paso in the late 1970s when the Army sent him to Fort Bliss for two weeks of training. Years later, on a youthful road trip he returned to the area to rock-climb at Hueco Tanks.

"My memory of El Paso was not very good," he said. "Asarco (the shuttered copper smelter) was still working, so there was pollution. It was the early '80s so the economy wasn't doing well."

After finishing medical school, he moved to New York to work in pediatrics because that was where the jobs were.

"I felt uncomfortable in New York taking care of kids who were sick, but had other options," Johansson said.

A headhunter was sending him information on the most lucrative job openings, one of which was at a private hospital in El Paso. He came for a visit in late 2008.

"I didn't like the hospital, but I fell in love with El Paso," Johansson said.

It was a friendly Realtor who insisted that Johansson speak with children's hospital officials.

"By the end of the afternoon, I thought, 'I've got to come work here,' " said Johansson, who later applied online. "It (money) wasn't even a question."

Johansson, whose mother, a Honduran, raised him, embraces the challenges of working in a poor community. His mother took on additional jobs to send him to a good Catholic school.

"I have a sense of debt to her," Johansson said. "It's where she would have wanted me to be."

All these doctors decided money was not the most important factor. But are these institutions getting the talent they need in a timely manner?

"There's a lot of competition for a limited amount of talent," Miller said. "But we've been pretty successful. The biggest limiting factor has been space and money."

Building the programs also means hiring technicians, postdoctoral students and support staff. The school must ensure there are resources for new projects and grants or other funding to fuel them.

"We put a lot into the core laboratory," Miller said. "We have the best in West Texas and among the best in the nation."

As more physicians commit to the El Paso medical facilities, recruiting becomes easier, said Duncan, who runs the children's hospital. With a scheduled 2012 opening, the hospital already has 17 physicians who are practicing at the medical center or the school's outpatient component, Duncan said. Five others are in negotiations, and the hospital will need at least 20 more, he said. He expects to hire about 10 per year, although some specialties -- such as pediatric neurosurgery -- still present a problem, no matter where you are located, he said.

"Word has gotten out that El Paso is very unique and is growing and has opportunities," Valenti said. "In four or five years, we've brought 106 physicians to (all three institutions). We are recruiting physicians faster than we ever have in the history of El Paso."

Chris Roberts may be reached at chrisr@elpasotimes.com; 546-6136.

The Medical Center of the Americas Foundation, which brings together entities in El Paso dedicated to health research, service delivery and education in the Paso del Norte region and the Americas, recently selected Hammes Company, E-Cubed Ventures LLC and Perkins+Will Inc. to help design a plan for 10 acres within the 140-acre master planned development that includes the Paul L. Foster School of Medicine - Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center El Paso and the University Medical Center of El Paso.

MCA’s initial request for proposals called for strategic and business planning services for only the first of three planned 80,000-square-foot buildings. Plans for Building I included offices, laboratories, support space, meeting/conference/auditorium facilities, technology incubator/accelerator space, medical office suites for clinical trials and flex space that can be built out for specific tenants’ needs.

The City of El Paso owns the land parcel upon which the research park will be built, according to Emma Schwartz, president of the MCA. The team recently began an eight-month process to outline the business plan for the research park.

Schwartz tells GlobeSt.com that the first step is to plan the anchor building for the bio-medical research park. The team is working on specifics such as the size of the property and the financing structure.

Although no leases have been signed for the anchor property, Schwartz says the team is working with a variety of potential tenants including the City of El Paso, which could occupy one floor of the property for its public health lab. Additionally, the team is in discussions with Texas Tech and University of Texas at El Paso about creating a joint research center.

“Between those two tenants, we would have pretty strong anchors for moving forward,” Schwartz says, adding that the research park will help serve the needs of the Hispanic, bi-national and military population of the Paso del Norte region, which includes El Paso, far West Texas, southern New Mexico and El Paso’s sister city of Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, México.

The region, which is also home to the Fort Bliss U.S. Army installation, White Sands Missile Range and several other military installations, has a combined population of 2.6 million, which makes it the largest metropolitan area on the U.S.-Mexico border and one of the largest border metroplexes in the world, according to data compiled by the MCA.

“The research park will help this community in many different ways,” Schwartz contends. “We’re a medically underserved community, and we know that if we have research going on here, it’s a great way to recruit providers and researchers to the region. Our intentions are greater than creating just another biotech hub.”

Last fall, as the El Paso City Council and the public-safety unions battled over money, the city appeared to be in a precarious situation.

But after concessions by the unions and cuts elsewhere in the budget, El Paso appears to be in better fiscal shape than some other Texas cities and far better than elsewhere in the country.

After the city closed the books on the first quarter of the fiscal year, budget officials projected earlier this month that the $317 million general fund would finish the year with a $105,000 surplus.

Revenues are expected to come in $239,000 less than expected, but that will be offset by expenditures projected to be $317,000 less than anticipated.

"It's always subject to change," Deputy City Manager Bill Studer cautioned about the projections. "It all depends on what happens in the world."

So far, El Paso seems poised to finish the year in the black.

Helping it are sales-tax collections that are 6.7 percent better than they were this time last year -- ninth-best of Texas' 20 biggest cities. Also helping are operating expenditures that are expected to be almost $1.3 million under budget.

A 0.03-percent surplus might not seem like much to crow about, but it's a lot better than what some other cities are dealing with.

For example, a slightly larger Texas city -- Fort Worth -- expects to end the year spending more than it takes in.

"We're still looking at a shortfall, but the numbers came back better than they were," said Bob Begley, a city spokesman.

Fort Worth budget officials earlier this month predicted the city would run a $24 million deficit in its $547 million general fund budget. The losses will come out of the city's $60 million fund balance.

Many cities outside of Texas are doing far worse.

"Texas cities generally are well off and we're well off compared to other Texas cities," Studer said.

The National League of Cities says municipal finances are a reflection of the overall economy -- but one that is delayed by 18 months or longer. That is because declines in property tax collections lag behind economic downturns since it takes time for property values to slump and even longer for those reduced values to be assessed.

Budget shortfalls largely due to declines in property-tax and sales-tax revenue led "80 percent of city finance officers (to) forecast that their cities will be less able to meet needs in 2011 than they were in 2010," the National League of Cities said in a report published in October.

"In general, things are pretty bad and they're probably going to continue that way," Amanda M. Straub, a spokeswoman for the League of Cities, said Friday.

Cities are hurting worst in regions where the economy suffered most.

Cincinnati, for example, has cut 365 jobs since 2008 in a city that is about half the size of El Paso. Even so, the city this year closed 19 pools and two recreation centers and cut funding for school nurses and to clean up vacant lots in the face of a $27 million deficit.

And Cincinnati's financial future looks bleak.

"The lingering structural imbalance within our city budget cultivates an environment of divisiveness and fear, with various segments of the administrative staff pitted against each other," City Manager Milton Dohoney Jr. said last week in a statement. "This is not a bedrock for productivity."

In New Jersey, Camden was forced to make deep cuts and laid off up to 380 employees -- including police officers and firefighters -- because of budget woes.

El Paso, by contrast, seems to enjoy an embarrassment of riches. While other cities are losing property-tax revenue, the Sun City anticipated a 5.8-percent increase for this year when Studer and others drew up the budget. And sales taxes are improving as well.

Careful budgeting has helped the city stay fiscally sound, but Studer said growth at Fort Bliss, the University of Texas at El Paso and the Medical Center of the Americas also are to be credited for the healthy finances.

"I think Fort Bliss has insulated us to some degree from some of the things other cities are facing," he said.

Marty Schladen may be reached at mschladen@elpasotimes.com; 546-6127.

“We would get the reputation of pulling people out of their situations to commit here just to let them go. That would impede our ability to recruit quality faculty and researchers to the region,” Schwartz says.

Med school officials went into the current legislative session hoping for funds to construct a third building.

They were also hoping for a sort of pediatric pavilion or clinic space that would house researchers and physicians who will practice at the new Children’s Hospital, when it is completed in about a year, next to University Medical Center.

“We will keep that wish list in our legislators’ faces because we don’t want them to forget it, but first and foremost, is maintaining what we have now,” Schwartz said.

The Texas Legislature is in the very early stages of forming the budget, and de la Rosa says he hopes it will end well. He spent a recent week in Austin pleading on behalf of the med school.

“We got some pretty grim assessments as well as the observation that this is only a starting point,” he says.

During the presentation, de la Rosa says some legislators were surprised by the school’s plight, some arched eyebrows and others aimed questioning looks at staffers.

State Rep. Dee Margo, R-El Paso, said he was not prepared to comment on the issue last week, since the House subcommittee that handles the medical school has not testified before the House Appropriations Committee. Margo was recently appointed to serve on Appropriations.

But a Margo spokesperson told El Paso Inc., “He does want to protect the operating budget of the medical school and consider a tuition revenue bond.”

Because the medical school is still relatively small, cuts are a more difficult proposition.

With fewer than 100 students, de la Rosa says, raising tuition would not go very far toward making up the potential $13 million cut.

The school’s faculty members are required to practice, as part of the med school’s faculty practice plan. Proceeds from that can help offset the schools costs, according to de la Rosa. Increasing that revenue might normally be an option, but not in El Paso, where the patient population tends to be poorer.

De la Rosa says that more than 65 percent of the patients they see are insured by Medicaid, which the legislature has also proposed cutting. And many El Paso doctors say Medicaid already does not reimburse them for what it costs to render their services.

With private investment hard to come by during an economic downturn, that leaves the cuts.

Schwartz with the Medical Center of the Americas Foundation says that she and a group of El Paso’s heavy hitters will be in Austin this week to speak on behalf of the med school.

“Rick Francis, Woody Hunt, Robert Brown, Paul Foster are constantly fighting to get El Paso its fair share to improve our education system and economy,” Schwartz said.

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It's going to be a detailed, $300,000 community development that truly involves the community -- UTEP, El Paso Community College, New Mexico State University, the city and county of El Paso, Fort Bliss, White Sands Missile Range, Texas Tech University and Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez.

Those are powerful entities by themselves, and working cooperatively ... much can be accomplished.

And that's the plan. This isn't going to happen overnight. We're looking at a 50-year plan that eventually will become a 140-acre biomedical park near the Texas Tech Health Sciences Center and University Medical Center -- a perfect location.

The plan is going to be used to raise money for an 80,000-square-foot building and should take about eight months to complete.

One huge component of a biomedical center would be the commercial aspect. Why? As Emma Schwartz, president of the Medical Center of the Americas Foundation, said, "That commercialization is where we can create jobs."

Obviously, that would be great for El Paso and the local economy.

Ideas developed in the academic world can find commercial applications, to the mutual benefit of both sides.

Such a center could attract professionals in many areas -- research, medicine, biotech, clinical trials, design, manufacturing and more. It won't be inexpensive, but proponents already are looking at funding sources that include grants, federal tax-investment programs and debt financing.

But the return on any investment should be positive.

El Paso already has a strong medical presence with a medical school, University Medical Center, a children's hospital on the way and more. Aiming high to be a biomedical center seems a natural progression.

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Next week, a team of companies from around the country is set to begin creating a detailed plan, which will include local universities and medical facilities as well as the city and county of El Paso, Fort Bliss, White Sands Missile Range and New Mexico State University.

The $300,000 community development plan, which will be used to raise money for construction of an 80,000-square-foot building in Central El Paso on 10 acres leased from the city, should take about eight months to complete.

It is the first step in a 50-year plan that envisions a 140-acre "world class" biomedical business park in El Paso.

"We have one shot at doing this and making it happen and making it successful for El Paso," said Emma Schwartz, president of the Medical Center of the Americas Foundation.

The building site is near the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, which is expected to provide one of the anchors for the medical research complex. Inside the building's walls, researchers and business people will find ways to commercialize basic university research, Schwartz said. Likely areas of interest include border health problems and combat injuries.

"It's the talent and partnerships in the research park," she said. "A lot of this is about sharing ideas when they are having coffee. It's about taking something to the next level”

Proponents would like to see the entire cycle of research, design and manufacture take place in this region.

"That commercialization is where we can create jobs," Schwartz said.

Economic benefits could include gainful jobs for El Pasoans, the use of manufacturing capabilities in Juárez and El Paso, and the revitalization of the neighborhood around Texas Tech's Paul L. Foster School of Medicine and University Medical Center. The plan will estimate economic impacts, Schwartz said.

And clinical trials for new techniques, medicines and equipment could provide cutting-edge health-care options for some El Pasoans.

Ultimately, the project will depend on creating a mutually beneficial relationship be tween academics and business people.

Universities often patent their discoveries. If a product or idea finds a commercial application, the university and the researcher receive royalties.

And the relationship is beneficial to companies that find pure research -- with its inevitable dead ends -- too costly and time-consuming.

At the university, dead ends have value, said Dr. Charles Miller, associate dean of research at Texas Tech in El Paso. Results are published and future research builds on that information, he said.

Both Texas Tech and the University of Texas at El Paso are expected to have a presence that will attract businesses, Schwartz said. Also included, she said, will be the Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez.

Universities generally do not fund commercial projects, and publicÐprivate partnerships open up that possibility, said Miller who, with another Texas Tech professor, plans to lease space at the center.

"We're a state institution and so we have a limited budget," he said. "It has a great deal of potential."

Current research that could qualify involves new vaccines and biotechnology devices, Miller said. In one case, researchers are experimenting with ways to replace bone fragments in shattered limbs that otherwise might be amputated, he said.

The Medical Center plan will identify tenants in the business world that would make good matches, Schwartz said. Hospitals in the area, which could conduct clinical trials, have been invited to participate, she said.

"Building prestige around the life-sciences community here will help them recruit" medical professionals, Schwartz said.

As the center grows, two other planned buildings would fit on the 10-acre parcel, Schwartz said. A measure of success, she said, would be whether a large health-care company will step up to pay for that additional construction.

After the plan is completed, Schwartz said, the first job will be to negotiate a land lease with the city.

Funding sources could include foundation grants, federal tax-credit investment programs for low-income communities and debt financing, Schwartz said.

"In a time that the entire country and the world is kind of grim, we are excited," Schwartz said. "We see a few hurdles, but we can overcome them."

Chris Roberts may be reached at chrisr@elpasotimes.com; 546-6136.

The foundation is completing a master plan for a 140-acre medical complex anchored by the Texas Tech University medical school and University Medical Center.

Mata operates his own law firm. Flood is a retired assistant professor at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in El Paso, and she helped get the Texas Tech medical school to El Paso.

Lisa Budtke, assistant treasurer at El Paso Electric, and Miguel Fernandez Jr., president of Transtelco, have been added to the board.

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

This will be her first visit to El Paso since her confirmation to lead the department. She is the fourth Cabinet-level official to visit El Paso in the last year.

"I am very pleased Secretary Sebelius accepted my invitation to visit El Paso, and I look forward to welcoming her to our community," Reyes said in a news release. "As HHS Secretary, she is the nation's highest-ranking health official and is leading the implementation of the historic Affordable Care Act passed earlier this year. Too many people in El Paso are without health insurance and her efforts are helping improve the quality of life for thousands of residents."

On Monday, July 19, Secretary Sebelius and Congressman Reyes will address members of the Paso del Norte Health Foundation to discuss ongoing efforts to improve health care in the United States, particularly along the border. On Tuesday, July 20, Secretary Sebelius and Congressman Reyes, along with José Ángel Córdova, Mexican Secretary of Health, will address the Plenary Session of the 10th Annual Border Health Commission Meeting at the Camino Real Hotel. They will also tour the Paul L. Foster School of Medicine and receive a briefing on the development of the Medical Center of the Americas.

The bi-national U.S.-Mexico Border Health Commission was established in July 2000 through an agreement between the Secretary of Health and Human Services of the United States and the Secretary of Health of Mexico. In 2004, the Commission was designated as a Public International Organization by Executive Order of the President. The mission of the U.S.-Mexico Border Health Commission is to provide international leadership to optimize health and quality of life along the U.S.-Mexico border. The Commission coordinates education and outreach efforts on public health issues such as immunizations, preparedness, and chronic disease prevention.

Since taking office, Secretary Sebelius has been a leader on some of the Obama administration's top priorities. In addition to her efforts on the Affordable Care Act, she also coordinated the response to the 2009 H1N1 flu virus. And under her leadership, HHS has provided a wide range of services from health care to child care to energy assistance to help families weather the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

Secretary Sebelius has been a leader on health care, family, and senior issues for over 20 years. As Governor of Kansas from 2003 to 2009, she fought to create jobs, improve access to affordable health care, and give every Kansas child a quality education. In 2005, Time Magazine recognized her achievements by naming her one of America's Top Five Governors.

http://www.kvia.com/news/24248501/detail.html

It is the headquarters of the Medical Center of the America's Foundation, the local nonprofit founded in 2006 that is guiding the development of a campus of medical facilities encompassing University Medical Center and Texas Tech's Paul L. Foster School of Medicine.

The city incorporated the 140-acre medical park near Downtown into its comprehensive plan in late 2008. The goal is to supercharge economic development in El Paso by expanding the life sciences and biomedical industries here.

Additionally, MCA foundation president Emma Schwartz sees the medical park as a big tool for attracting physicians to El Paso. It will allow for physicians to be more involved with research, mentoring and publishing papers.

Although the foundation is a nonprofit and separate from city government, or any other affiliation, the city has played a crucial role in the MCA foundation planning, incorporating phase one of the foundation's master plan into the city's master plan in late 2008.

"If you look at the demographics of El Paso today, you are looking at the demographics of the nation 20 years from now, so we should be trendsetters," Mayor John Cook said.

Can El Paso become the premier center for healthcare for Hispanic, border and military communities over the next several decades? It's not impossible. Other cities have been leading the way for decades.

Shreveport, La., is 20 years ahead of the MCA foundation. The Biomedical Research Foundation, or BRF, was established there in 1986 to do for Northwest Louisiana what the MCA foundation is just beginning to do here, and it has been extremely successful.

Jack F. Sharp heads up the BRF as its president and CEO.

"Every town that wants to get into this needs to have a foundation that can take on the job of sustaining the effort. There is just the reality that these things don't happen quickly," Sharp said. "The foundation's primary role is being able to weather the bad times and maintain the vision and enthusiasm."

According to the BRF, it was formed with an initial matching grant of $150,000 from the Community Foundation of Shreveport-Bossier.

Now, 24 years later, the BRF manages a $15 million operating budget and $90 million in assets, according to Sharp. Since its inception, the foundation has raised about $213 million.

In Shreveport, those dollars have gone towards establishing a biotech research park, biomedical research institute, business incubator and expanded the research capacity of the Louisiana State University Medical Center.

The BRF has attracted several pharmaceutical companies to the park and 11 companies have been born
in its incubator, according to Sharp.

That's about where Schwartz says she would like to see the Medical Center of the Americas in 20 to 30 years. "It has a timeline we really look to follow," she said.

And there is reason to keep pushing forward. That Shreveport is ahead in the development of its medical park may have already cost El Paso one company.

Last year, El Paso City Council offered Kolmar Labs, the largest color-cosmetics manufacturer in North America, an estimated $1.5 million in tax rebates to move its corporate headquarters and factories here from Port Jervis, N.Y. After narrowing the field to El Paso and Shreveport, the company said late last year that it had ruled out El Paso.

Although Kolmar may have to locate outside the medical park if it chooses to move to Shreveport, that the city has developed the medical infrastructure has been key to its allure, Sharp said.

Plans for the medical park in El Paso include expansion of University Medical Center that's currently underway; a third Texas Tech School of Medicine building to support research; a biotech park; private medical research buildings; medical office buildings; expanded and renovated city health department and a quad or plaza to link it all together.

Schwartz said the medical park could also include a dental school, building for nonprofit groups working on health-related issues and a center where doctors could use technology to telecommute with underserved urban communities in the region. That could include teleconferencing with patients and performing surgeries long-distance with robots. It's a 50-year vision.

They hope to have the first phase of the two-phase project done in 10 to 15 years.

Where the BRF was in the late 1980s, the MCA foundation is now. In 2008, the MCA raised $311,598 and spent $161,014, according to the MCA foundation's Form 990, the federal tax form filed by nonprofits.

Schwartz said they have held on to the remaining $150,584 to fund phase two of the master plan – detailed planning on the final land use, including architecture standards, transportation, storm water drainage, green spaces, engineering and financing.

According to Schwartz, the medical park will be geared toward those issues important to this region such as diabetes, obesity and post traumatic stress disorder.

"We are really trying to become what is important to our community," Schwarz said.

Although the project has not moved forward as fast as Schwartz would like, that is quickly changing as policy makers and the big players in health and economic development here in El Paso have coalesced around the idea, providing the momentum to propel the project forward.

With so many now working towards the same goal things are really beginning to accelerate, according
to Schwartz.

"I can barely keep up with it," she said.

The Regional Economic Development Corporation, or REDCo, recently began aggressively trying to attract biotech companies to El Paso. University Medical Center, formerly Thomason Hospital, has begun the construction of its new children's hospital and woman's hospital and has plans to double its emergency room capacity and trauma care, according to its president Jim Valenti.

In 1999, Texas Tech proposed creating a four-year medical school on its El Paso campus. Ten years later El Paso celebrated its inaugural class with 40 students.

The MCA foundation will also get a major boost next month when the National Institutes of Health visits El Paso – a rare chance Schwartz said to pitch El Paso to a government agency that annually invests over $28 billion in medical research, much of that given out in grants to organizations like the MCA foundation.

"It's extraordinary for us just to have them come down here," Schwartz said.

According to Schwartz, the MCA foundation applied for a $10-million dollar grant from the National Institutes of Health in July but was turned down. Schwartz said she was not surprised given how young the foundation is.

Local heavy hitter, businessman Woody Hunt, got on board early with a $500,000 challenge grant to get the fledgling foundation moving and the community involved. (Incidentally, the Biomedical Research Foundation in Shreveport also received a $500,000 boost in its early years from a private donor.)

"We've got to be prepared to really stand the test of time here. It is not something that happens overnight," Hunt said. "The most important thing is that (the foundation) is the keeper of the vision."

Hunt, who served as the MCA foundation's first chairman, said that the expansion of the Texas Tech Medical School into a third building is key to moving their vision forward, but will be challenging.

The current slump in the economy, he said, will make it difficult to get the project funded next legislative session.

"We have a finite amount of resources," he said, "and we need to make our case that this is a good investment." 

"This allows us to move forward," said Ralph Adame, a member of the non-profit MCA board.

The MCA is meant to be a "keeper of the vision," an organization that maintains a big-picture view of a medical campus that incorporates Thomason, Texas Tech and other institutions and businesses that want to be in one physical location. The concept is modeled after medical centers in such places as San Antonio and Houston, where clustered medical service, research and industry create enormous economic engines.

The concept in El Paso has been controversial because of the potential use of eminent domain, a concern that derailed the project for years and played a role in City Council elections in 2003. The City Plan Commission suggested that eminent domain not be used in carrying out the plan, although the plan itself does not affect the legal authority of any of the institutions involved to use eminent domain for a public purpose.

Adame said it wouldn't be necessary under the current conditions anyway, because enough landowners have expressed a willingness to participate to serve at least the next five to 10 years of development.

The plan was paid for through a combination of donations from individuals and foundations, and a grant from the city of El Paso.

Adame said approval of the master plan allows the MCA to move to the next phase of planning, which will address details such as transportation and drainage in the area.

In addition to recommending against the use of eminent domain, the City Plan Commission also:
-- Noted that the railroad, which runs underneath Raynolds between Interstate 10 and Alameda, must be dealt with in some way.
-- Recommended adding a neighborhood representative to the MCA board.
-- Recommended seeking a study from the Texas Department of Transportation regarding creation of direct access from I-10 to the north and from the Border Highway to the south.
-- Suggested a looking into a mass transit component to the project: "We're suggesting the BRT system in a larger use area," said Gus Haddad, chairman of the City Plan Commission.

***

Here is a look at the project through the NPT archives:
-- The MCA and the public trust, Posted on September 22, 2008: "It's back to the future. The MCA master plan is up for discussion Tuesday at a special City Plan Commission meeting. The same issue -- trust -- is in play as during the discussion several years ago, but the processes and dynamics have changed."

-- Meet the Plan: Medical Center of the Americas campus open for discussion, Posted on August 15, 2008:  "Almost 10 years in the making, depending how it's calculated, the Medical Center of the Americas will hit a key stage over the next several weeks as the master plan outlining general land use for more than 200 acres is vetted in public."

-- Coming Soon, A Push for the Unified Medical Campus, Posted on March 20, 2006: "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."

-- Medical Center of Americas Coming into Focus, Posted on April 17, 2006: "The project is picking up steam, with more details made public at a meeting of the mayor’s Medical Cabinet April 12. The city will be asked to help fund a master plan, to begin in September and be finished in March, 2007. Meanwhile, Tech and Thomason proceed with their growth plans."

-- Hunt Family Foundation Donates $500,000 to MCA, Posted on August 3, 2007: "The Hunt Family Foundation
has donated $500,000 to the Medical Center of the Americas Foundation. The following is a news release
regarding the donation."

-- UTEP and the MCA, Virtually Partners Despite Missed Opportunities, Posted on September 14, 2007: "For the
second time since UTEP signed on as a partner in the proposed medical center in the late 90s, the UT System
has decided to place a major health-related asset on the UTEP campus instead of the Medical Center of the
Americas, a site anchored by Thomason and Texas Tech in Central El Paso. But this time, the MCA has its own
momentum."

-- Hunt and Shapleigh on the MCA and the Nursing School, Posted on October 12, 2007: "An exchange of letters - two from this week - between business leader Woody Hunt and state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh sheds light on some of the issues involved in building a medical center in El Paso, and that medical center's relationship with UTEP."

That's an issue at the core of politics at any level, and in El Paso politics, it is the lack of trust that is the underlying force behind the community's difficulty to unite completely behind proposals. The lack of trust sometimes is a natural outgrowth of government behavior, sometimes manufactured to galvanize a voting bloc, and often, a combination of both.

That was the case when the Medical Center of the Americas, then known as the Border Health Institute, was promoted in the Caballero administration in 2002. The resulting public outcry, and the political effort to encourage and harness that response, was part of the campaign against then-Mayor Ray Caballero, and was directly responsible city Rep. Larry Medina loss to Alexandro Lozano in 2003.

Now, back to the future, the MCA master plan is up for discussion Tuesday at a special City Plan Commission. Then it goes to City Council. Click here for the agenda.

While the process is different this time around -- a long planning period, followed by a series of public meetings -- many of the players are the same.

Lozano was one of those in the audience at a public meeting Sept. 10 at the Silva Magnet School Auditorium.

The meeting was to describe the Medical Center of the Americas project -- and specifically, the master plan under consideration -- to residents of the neighborhood and to the general public. For NPT background on the master plan, click here.

He also took the lead in raising questions during another, smaller meeting Wednesday night with about 40 neighborhood residents and business owners and city rep.

Emma Acosta, who took Lozano's seat when he ran unsuccessfully for county commissioner this year, and County Commissioner Veronica Escobar, who was part of Caballero's team during the first go-round for the project.

Somewhat ironically, Lozano was on board the MCA for two years when he represented District 3 -- in fact, his name is on the master plan posted on the city website as background. Click here to view that document.

Another familiar player is Vivian Rojas, who got into politics during the BHI battle because her grandmother's home is on Concepcion, the street next to Raynolds that is squeezed between Thomason and the new Texas Tech medical school buildings.
Rojas was the city representative from District 7, but was defeated by city Rep. Steve Ortega in 2005.

In one exchange between Escobar and Rojas at Wednesday's meeting, Rojas told Escobar, "you keep saying don't be frightened. Nobody is frightening anyone. We're here because we want to know."

Lozano, however, in the meeting and in an interview after, kept alive the issue of trust -- or lack of it.

While he said he supported the plan, he also said during an interview with NPT things like this: "All I'm asking the MCA is if they (property owners) can stay in the property or if they're going to be forced to sell."

Public officials and members of the MCA, both of which Lozano has been, consistently have said that the plan does not involve eminent domain. Nothing about the plan changes any government entities ability to use that controversial power, and the plan's only relation to land use is that the uses outlined in the master plan could be used as one basis for deciding a request for rezoning property in the future.

Lozano also said in the interview he was considering a run for mayor, but had not yet decided.

The biggest issue in the MCA master plan discussion continues to be about trust. But this time around, the issue is not a one-way street.

About 50 people turned out Wednesday night for the meeting at the Silva Health Magnet School. Home owners repeated two key questions: Would they be forced to leave and would they get fair prices for their homes?

Center officials acknowledged the plan affects some residential properties, but they indicated that for now, no one will be required to leave their homes or businesses.

They also said there are no plans to use eminent domain or create a tax increment reinvestment zone.

“The Medical Center of the Americas will position the Paso del Norte region as the premier center for healthcare for the Hispanic, border and military communities,” said Emma Schwartz, executive director of the Medical Center for Americas Foundation.

The not-for-profit foundation was put together by the Paso del Norte Group to serve as the medical center’s master planner and to develop a long-term vision for the area. Schwartz said the project would not qualify as a tax increment zone because most of its tenants will be non-taxable and institutions of higher education. She also said all project members, including board members, staff, and volunteers, have signed conflict of interest policies that prevent them from profiting from the development. First phase Phase one includes 140 acres north of Interstate 10 and Alameda and is divided by Raynolds Street.

“This is not an actual floor or site plan that states exactly where everything is supposed to be,” said Jason Haim, principal architect with Lee Burkhart Liu Consulting. “This is to establish what the medical center can become over a 50-year period.”

The master plan was created by Lee Burkhart Liu Consulting, a firm that specializes in planning and architectural design for healthcare facilities, under a contract with the foundation.

According to the master plan, medical center buildings will not be taller than four stories, and they will be designed with energy efficiency in mind.

Haim said the site also presents problems that must be addressed before any construction begins, including drainage issues, the location of the railroad and vehicular traffic. Organizers said the Rio Grande Cancer Foundation has agreed to locate within the center.

Also envisioned is a Sun Metro transportation hub and physician offices. The master plan is to go before City Council on Sept. 16. If approved, the city would be asked to incorporate the project into its budget.

Project organizers also envision development money coming from the county, grants and the entities locating there.

UPDATING RESIDENTS

Schwartz said that the foundation members have met with many of the area’s property owners and that many are supportive of the redevelopment.

“We will continue to meet with landowners to get their input because their input is very valuable to our progress,” she said.

The plan was funded through grants received from the public and the private sector. Some private donations came from the Hunt and Schwartz family foundations.

City Council approval would be required before construction could occur and will be required at each stage of development.

When the Medical Center of the Americas Foundation was created under former Mayor Ray Caballero, plans to use eminent domain and tax increment financing brought loud protests from area residents.

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. 

"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."