Chicago firm tapped to prepare relocation plan.
By: David Campbell
Princeton HealthCare System has selected Chicago-based firm AMDC Corp. as the project manager that will oversee the first phase of planning for what PHCS officials say will result in a new state-of-the-art hospital campus within two to six miles of the current medical center at Witherspoon Street.
AMDC will assemble a team of consultants and analysts on everything from real estate to finances to prepare a comprehensive business plan for possible relocation. The plan is expected to go before PHCS’s board of trustees in June.
If the board approves the business plan, thereby giving the green light to relocation, the health-care system then would seek a certificate of need from the state Department of Health and Senior Services.
AMDC is expected to come up with a comprehensive plan that details expected project costs and financial performance of the replacement facility, as well as potential sources of capital from fund-raising and from the sale of the University Medical Center at Princeton and the Merwick Rehab Hospital & Nursing Care sites.
"We’re optimistic it will show that moving forward is sound, and then we’ll move forward," PHCS President and CEO Barry Rabner said Monday.
The overall goal of the planned relocation is to build a replacement hospital to be operational six years or so from now when hospital officials expect the current UMCP site to have reached the limits of its functional capacity, Mr. Rabner said. He said the new location will make the hospital more easily accessible to the people it serves, including residents of Princeton, than the current site.
"It’s to serve the communities we’ve traditionally served, recognizing that the population is expanding and aging," he said of the move being contemplated by PHCS.
AMDC will be paid up to $108,000 for its services and could be retained for work on subsequent phases of relocation. Most of the information the firm will gather will be included in the need application to state health officials.
"So we are, in fact, moving forward," Mr. Rabner said.
The predevelopment phase that AMDC has been hired to undertake is the first of five phases intended to guide PHCS through evaluation of feasibility. Other stages are planning, design, construction and final move-in, Mr. Rabner said.
According to Milind Khare, PHCS’s director of planning and business development, the business plan will seek to validate findings obtained through PHCS’s lengthy strategic-planning process, which included extensive outreach to area residents and public officials. AMDC also will oversee selection of the primary and fall-back sites for the relocation, and prepare the sales criteria for the UMCP and Merwick sites.
Last month, the trustees of PHCS, the hospital’s corporate parent, voted to explore building a new state-of-the-art hospital campus on a site of at least 50 acres within two to six miles of the current location. The new facility is expected to cost about $250 million, with revenue from the sale of the 11.76 acres of hospital property off Witherspoon Street to be reinvested in the new campus.
PHCS Chief Financial Officer Bruce Traub said AMDC was selected from a pool of four potential firms for the job. He said the final decision was made last week.
AMDC assists health-care providers in planning, financing and managing real estate projects like the one PHCS is undertaking. To date, the firm has completed projects worth more than $2.5 billion, and currently oversees more than $800 million in projects.