KANSAS CITY, MO—As the country's healthcare delivery model continues to shift toward providing more and more care in freestanding, outpatient facilities, many health systems no longer feel the need to invest as much capital as they once did into their main, flagship hospital campuses.

Locally based Truman Medical Centers (TMC), however, has a different strategy: to be “the” downtown healthcare provider. After selling four nearby buildings that housed a variety of its outpatient services, Truman recently announced that it will move those services and consolidate others inside a future $29 million facility it has planned for a site just north of its 272-bed flagship hospital in an area known as Hospital Hill.

Work is underway on the four-story, 90,000-square foot Hospital Hill Outpatient Center at the corner of 22nd and Charlotte streets. Developing the facility for Truman is Milwaukee-based Landmark Healthcare Facilities, which is financing 88 percent of the cost. Its Landmark Healthcare Properties Fund LLC will own the building and collect the rent proceeds, with a portion going to Truman.

The future outpatient facility, scheduled to open in 2015, will house an ambulatory surgery center, eye clinics and other services, including physical, speech and occupational therapies; ear, nose and throat; audiology; podiatry; gastroenterology; urology; and a diagnostic imaging center.

In addition to Truman Medical Centers, other tenants in the building will include Sabates Eye Centers, the UMKC Vision Research Center and the Eye Foundation of Kansas City.

For Landmark, led by owners Joseph W. Checota, chairman and CEO, and Benjamin M. Checota, senior VP for business development, the project is one of 25 that it has developed for “18 health systems in recent years,” according to the firm.

Of those 25, the company's Landmark Healthcare Properties Fund LLC owns or co-owns 15 of them in partnerships with hospitals, health systems and/or physicians. It also has developed facilities for the sole ownership of health systems and/or REITs, according to the company.

As noted, a big part of Truman's medical delivery strategy is to fortify its main campus, which is between Holmes and Charlotte streets. Doing so, according to CEO John Bluford, will help solidify Truman's status as Kansas City's “downtown” hospital.

Eventually, the hospital system also plans to renovate the Felix Building at 2211 Charlotte St., across the street from the future outpatient center.

In preparation for the development of the new outpatient facility, Truman sold four outpatient buildings in 2013 to the nearby Children's Mercy Hospital, which along with the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) schools of dentistry and pharmacy and other medical buildings, comprise what is known as Hospital Hill.

Truman also operates a hospital about 15 miles southeast of downtown, the 333-bed Truman Medical Centers-Lakewood, near Lee's Summit, Mo.

John B. Mugford is the Editor of Healthcare Real Estate Insights™, the nation's first and only publication totally dedicated to covering news and trends in healthcare real estate development, financing and investment. For more information, please visit www.HREInsights.com.