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Bay Area News
UTMB pursuing Victory Lakes facility
By Laura Elder The Daily News
LEAGUE CITY — As it seeks more paying patients, the University of Texas
Medical Branch will push ahead with plans to build a $61 million specialty
center in League City, a project shelved more than a year ago after outcry
from lawmakers and mainland physicians who feared state-backed competition.
The UT System Board of Regents will decide midmonth whether to approve the
110,000-square-foot facility, planned for 35 acres near Interstate 45, FM
646 and the Victory Lakes subdivision.
Medical branch executives did not want to comment until after the board’s
decision.
The two-story facility would offer advanced imaging, pediatric and adult
clinics, outpatient surgery and pediatric urgent care in an area where
medical services are mushrooming as hospital systems go after affluent
suburban residents. The medical branch’s facility, however, will not contain
hospital beds.
The mainland facility now has support of some former opponents, who had
argued the medical branch, at the time roiled by layoffs and other
cost-cutting measures, should improve its island facilities before looking
north.
Also, some mainland physicians said a state-funded institution should not be
allowed to compete with private practices, while other critics said initial
plans were too vague.
State Sen. Kyle Janek said Wednesday he no longer opposed the Victory Lakes
facility.
“What’s different is that the administration has demonstrated that they’re
putting resources into the facility on the island,” Janek said. “To me, it
was much about addressing the problems you’ve got at home — get the
elevators working and remove graffiti — before reaching out to other areas.
I think the administration is doing that in a methodical and competent
fashion.”
When, in 2006, former medical branch President John Stobo proposed building
a Victory Lakes facility, he and other executives argued they had to do
something to increase the number of insured or otherwise paying customers.
Timing didn’t help the proposal. The community still was stinging after the
island’s largest employer cut about 800 full-time equivalent positions. The
medical branch, charged with treating the state’s poorest residents, also
was grappling with dwindling state funds and soaring medical inflation.
After meeting harsh criticism, Stobo in October 2006 announced the medical
branch would postpone the project for six months. He said pragmatism, not
politics, was behind the decision.
Nine months ago, Stobo was succeeded by Dr. David L. Callender.
Janek, a private-practice anesthesiologist, earlier this year announced he
would resign from the Texas Senate to spend more time with his family. His
term ends in four weeks.
Janek said he never opposed the medical branch increasing its presence on
the mainland, where it operates nine clinics. His criticism was based on
what he called nebulous plans.
State Rep. Craig Eiland also opposed the earlier plans because they were
vague, he said.
“They were about to allegedly start building a facility that would be used
for ‘maybe this, or maybe that,’” Eiland said. “I don’t think state funds
should be used for ‘maybe this, maybe that.’”
Eiland said Wednesday he supports the project.
“I feel like they have a business plan and market analysis that makes better
sense,” Eiland said. “They know what they’re building before they build it.”
Callender, both Eiland and Janek said, has a clear vision of what the
facility would offer.
Janek said Callender had done a good job explaining to physicians that the
facility could be mutually beneficial.
“I can’t say the medical community on the whole agrees, but I think they
should listen to the man,” Janek said. “He’s not trying to steal patients
from them, he’s trying to improve services currently being delivered.”
The center’s projected cost is $61 million, which includes $22 million in
medical equipment.
Medical branch officials say borrowed money and donations, not tax dollars,
would be used for the facility.
Construction could begin as early as August.
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