The outside temperature may have only been around 50 degrees, and water from a steady rain was creating a river in one part of the big party tent.
But that didn’t keep more than 100 community members and potential donors from enjoying a special “campus preview event” today showcasing the first phase of Baylor Scott And White Health‘s new medical center in Frisco.
“Good day for the ducks,” cracked Dean Fearing, standing near his fellow celebrity chef and BSW booster Kent Rathbun in the middle of the crowded venue. Dean was lending a hand as Kent provided guests with a lunch of Rosewood Ranch beef tenderloin and shrimp and grits, with a side of Israeli couscous salad.
Kent said he’d recently hosted an event at his house for the heart transplant unit at Baylor Scott And White, whose new hospital at the northeast corner of Dallas Parkway and PGA Parkway will be its third in Frisco.
The facility, which broke ground earlier this year, will serve as an anchor for the system’s locations in the fast-growing region when it opens in 2025.
Ryan Gebhart, who’s president of Frisco’s acute-care Baylor Scott And White Medical Center-Centennial and is leading efforts for the new hospital, said the masterplanned campus on 40 acres off PGA Parkway “will set a new standard” for healthcare in Texas as it grows along with the community.
“It’s more than a hospital,” he told the attendees during the event’s formal program. “It’s an experience-driven medical center unlike any other in this region, focused long-term on education, research and innovation.”
As outlined by Gebhart, the facility’s first phase will include a 340,000-square-foot hospital with 84 in-patient beds and 16 ER exam rooms, as well as a 155,000-square-foot medical office building housing primary- and specialty-care clinics.
From the tent the guests could see the shell of the seven-story hospital — it had been “topped out” the day before — while the office building, which is being funded by Baylor Scott And White partner the Dallas Cowboys, is scheduled to break ground on Monday.
One focus of the hospital itself, Gebhart said, will be “the mother’s experience,” including a dedicated women’s and children’s entrance, private obstetrics emergency department rooms and post-partum suites. There will also be a “play space” for children in collaboration with the Dallas Stars hockey team, plus greenspaces “with bluebonnets like you’ve never seen before.”
Other speakers at the preview event included the Hon. Lyndon Olson Jr., vice chair and chair-elect of the BSW Holdings Board of Trustees; BSW CEO Pete McCanna; and BSW Dallas Foundation President Ben Renberg.
Asked after the program about the need for a new hospital in Frisco, Pete said, “When we develop hospitals, we’re developing them for today [as well as] for the next 50 years. And we see this community needing a broad array of medical services for a long time.”
Ben from the foundation added that philanthropy will play an important role in the hospital project’s first phase, although, “at the moment, we’re still working through some of our early due diligence on the [precise] role philanthropy will play.”
Frisco Mayor Jeff Cheney also attended the event and addressed the crowd.
“Frisco is not slowing down anytime soon,” the mayor told Gebhart with a smile. “So, before I leave here today, since you have your leaders here, we’re going to start talking about phase two — and how we get that out of the ground sooner rather than later.”
* Photo credit: Glenn Hunter