On WCOA this morning, Escambia County Commissioner Chairman Lumon May said the Baptist Hospital leaders are open to offering medical services at its old campus on E Street.
“We had a great conversation,” said the commissioner of his meeting with Baptist CEO Mark Faulkner and VP Jennifer Grove. “I think that they seem receptive. What we’ve asked is that we keep a life in those buildings”
Commissioner May asked that Baptist keep its cafeteria open and keep medical services available in the new entrance that Baptist opened in 2012 as part of a $24-million expansion. “We asked one that the restaurant remain open and we didn’t get a hard ‘no,’ so that was very positive.”
He later added, “Obviously the plan’s not going to get worked out in the next nine days, but it’s my strong opinion and position that we keep that campus open with life.”
I hadn’t been to the hospital in a while. I get my care at HCA West Florida and also Ascension Sacred Heart hospitals. People have told me horror stories about the condition of Baptist Hospital. I took a self-guided tour this past weekend seeing few if any people. I pretty much expected to see raw sewage in the bathrooms, cockroaches everywhere, mold climbing the walls and perhaps a family of racoons roaming the place. Instead, the place looked pretty OK. I thought to myself that the city would have to be crazy to want to demolish the building. At 492,000 square feet, it seems ideal to retrofit to consolidate city offices to include a new city hall moving from the old one in a storm surge zone. I think the potential of the campus for the city is “unlimited.” In 2019 when Baptist asked the city to annex the property I suggested to Councilwoman Myers that the city should make annexation contingent on Baptist giving the entire campus to the city or selling it at or below the market rate. That way, it could be redeveloped in a coherent way to include providing for equity in recreational facilities on the west side of the city. By the way, I have never seen anything in the media explaining “why” Baptist is moving but a 2014 joint Pensacola, Escambia County & Baptist study raised a high bar for the city to do something to improve that area. There was a follow-up 2016 report. I can see why Baptist employees would not want to work there. I got the creeps just walking around in the daytime. Obviously, the city dithered and delayed because that is what it does best. The city could have invested all of the COVID-19 money to fix up the area. By 2017, Baptist was “quietly” buying up the new property using at least one dummy corporation. Baptist has had six plus years to come up with a plan to do as it promised to do. Shame on Baptist. By the way, just an interesting fact, the City of Pensacola helped build the original hospital. I went back and traced the history from the first 1942 meeting at The First Baptist Church of Pensacola to the 1951 opening. Early on, the city and the Baptist community each pledged to pay one-third. The final cost was $1.1 million which just happens to be what Faulkner was paid in 2020. It was another $300,000 for equipment and furniture. So, the city has more skin in this game than we know going back to the very start. Lastly, Baptist’s website says that the “old” hospital has 520 patient beds and the “new” hospital has 264 patient beds. Anyone see anything wrong with that picture? A new $650 million hospital was built with 256 fewer patient beds?