The small office on the 15th floor of the Chase Bank Tower Downtown might not look like a portal to the future of El Paso's medical economy, but it is.

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."