Martha Jefferson Hospital won’t vacate its nine-acre Downtown property for Pantops pastures until 2012, but hospital officials have already gotten the ball rolling on what will take its place.
 Martha Jefferson’s spokesman says the facade should stay—but it’s still anyone’s guess what will happen behind it when the Downtown hospital site is redeveloped in 2012. |
“The last thing we want is to move out in 2012 and not have a somewhat immediate transition take place,” says Steve Bowers, spokesman for the hospital. “I don’t think anybody wants to see the site stand stagnant for longer than a day.” Martha Jefferson is banking on a significant financial return from the Downtown property to help bankroll the transition to Peter Jefferson Place.
To suss out the possibilities, Bowers has brought a Brookings Institution researcher, Chris Leinberger, to Charlottesville for several sessions. Much of the discussion has revolved around the idea of “patient equity” as put forth by Leinberger in a Brookings research brief. The idea is that investors in major projects such as the adaptive reuse of Martha Jefferson need to get past the expectation of short-term gains. They should expect significant gains—but not until 10 or more years after breaking ground.
That means that Martha Jefferson version 2.0 probably won’t emerge successful overnight. “We know that the more patient our process the more likely it is the result will be what’s good for everybody,” says Bowers. “We probably could have already taken a check for the property, but that’s antithetical to how we want to go about it. We haven’t embraced any plans, we haven’t ruled anything out.”
Part of the trick is finding a compatible development partner. “A lot of it comes back to character—people who will understand our unique community,” Bowers says. “Obviously it would be fantastic if local groups came up and got in the mix when we’re ready to consider proposals, but I think we’ll also get some attention from outside the city as well. Charlottesville’s on the map, it’s kind of undeniable at this point.”
The hospital’s goal is to get a vision in place by the end of the year and a development partner in place by 2010 at the latest so that they can work with regulatory bodies in the city. “It can sound frustrating because there’s not a whole lot tangible going on,” says Bowers. “But I like to remind people that it would probably be a bad thing if there were tangible things going on before we knew what we were doing. It’s kind of the think-tank approach.”
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