If plans and funding all come together through the remainder of the 2020s decade, Saginaw’s downtown Medical Diamond project would feature a $100 million building that would house another Central Michigan University College of Medicine extension as the prime occupant, creating 1,000 jobs.
The $15 million behavioral mental health portion, focal point of the City Council and County Board giving $5 million apiece in federal ARPA funds, possibly could open sooner, by the end of 2026.
These updates at City Hall on Monday caused Councilman Bill Ostash to reaffirm his belief that this is the most significant local economic news at least in the past two decades. He made a comparison to his previous home, Bay City, where he resided during the 1980’s and ’90s, pointing to development’s spinoff benefits for housing and small businesses.
CMU rapidly is increasing its medical presence in the city, coming eight years after opening an initial education center on the Covenant HealthCare campus that cost $23.1 million in 2015 dollars.
The project represents a continued shift to health care as a main answer to auto and manufacturing decline.
Mayor Brenda Moore said the Medical Diamond is a main example that fulfills her yearlong promises that funding for better times is “in the pipeline,” and that supporters and skeptics alike will be hearing more to come.
Leaders of Saginaw Future and the Chamber of Commerce, along with Dr. Samuel Shaheen, have offered similar general optimism since summer 2021, when the American Rescue Plan Act first arrived with a windfall grant of federal aid, intended to help communities recover from COVID-19’s damage.
Other Medical Diamond funding sources, to date, are $30.3 million from the state and $3.3 million from the feds
Shaheen a year ago spoke of non-disclosure agreements that required privacy, but last summer Mayor Brenda Moore joined one of her predecessors, Joyce Seals, in saying the time for more info was becoming overdue. Councilman George Copeland also was expressing concern because smaller mental health service agencies felt excluded from ARPA in favor of a big mystery venture.
Tom Miller, Saginaw Future vice-president, noted early in his Monday presentation that the CMU Board of Trustees on Nov. 30 voted final approval to go ahead with the project.
A report from the university’s media office states:
“In other new business, Trustees adopted a resolution to support CMU’s continued exploration of opportunities to strengthen the College of Medicine through an expanded presence in Saginaw, Michigan.
“The resolution follows recommendations from the Board’s Health Care Special Committee, presented in 2022, and empowers the president and his leadership team to continue ‘developing and implementing a new structure aligning CMU’s Undergraduate Medical Education (CMED) and Graduate Medical Education (CMEP) under a CMU-controlled and unified entity.'”
CMU is committing a $100 million match for general operating costs that would encompass staffing and programming, Miller said.
The building’s price tag is pegged even higher than the $75 million for Saginaw United High School, slated to open next fall diagonally across the river from the Medical Diamond site at South Washington and Millard, across from the 7-Eleven. Major unusual expenses would include a stronger seawall and underground utility lines, Miller reported.
He explained that the concept took root a decade ago, long prior to ARPA, because local hospitals desired a college of medicine to be located closer to home.
“Medical Diamond” became the moniker in November 2022 when Dr. Shaheen spoke to the council for the only time in public. Dots on a map would begin downtown, reach to Ascension St. Mary’s, then to the Court Street Bridge (for the parks and Old Town), then to Covenant Health Care, and then back downtown, creating the diamond shape.
Miller did not name “BWell,’ the title for the County Health Department’s ongoing process of planning, but he noted that the Medical Diamond will address the issues of maternal health and obesity, which are priorities for BWell and its advisory Health Equity Council, chaired by Seals, to address racial disparities. (Sunday’s CNN report by Abby Phillip on her personal story of motherhood offers an example.)
Council members were assured to receive more regular Medical Diamond updates, now that the partnership with CMU is final and official. Miller said the affirmation also will assist to strengthen fund requests through the federal EDA, Economic Development Administration, which were denied in a previous cycle. He also noted that a decision on another state grant, this one for $10 million, is due within weeks.
Partners will go far beyond CMU, St. Mary’s, Covenant and Dr. Shaheen. They will include, to start, Great Lakes Bay Health, the Veteran’s Hospital, and health care providers at all levels.
The fate of the existing public health building at 1600 North Michigan apparently remains uncertain.
To view Miller’s report, click here.
For another look at Dr. Shaheen’s November 22 remarks, click here.
Food access in spotlight
Also Monday, City Council members made final a first step toward tackling “food desert” concerns in the city, where no major food chain exists. Even on the more prosperous outer West Side, shoppers have seen their Kroger flee to the suburbs.
Previous votes have reserved $2 million of the record-setting $52 million ARPA windfall.
Monday’s agenda includes a contract with the new Saginaw Food Community Club and Kitchen, grantee for the first $1 million, to lease the city-owned former Big Brothers property at 1910 Fordney, across from the YMCA, to serve as a “nonprofit membership model,” which is parlance for a co-op. The Food Club would demolish the old offices and build a new facility.
Results of a community survey for how to spend the remaining $1 million will be reviewed and discussed during the council’s annual planning session, beginning at 9 a.m. on Friday, Jan. 12, at City Hall. Another key topic will be overall ARPA spending.
The Food Club outline from City Manager Tim Morales and from Cassi Zimmerman, planning and economic development director, states, “The use of the property will ultimately serve the important purpose for the City by addressing and impacting food equity through increased access to healthy foods and nutritional resources.”
Food Club will pay a nominal $1 lease for paperwork processing purposes and will be responsible for all insurances and property upkeep.
Through the Food Club guidelines, for example, a family of four with annual income up to around $50,000 will pay in the $15 range for $100 in credits. Half of households will qualify for at least some sort of aid, while others without subsidies could benefit from suburban-type prices at an in-town location.
Organizers represent agencies that aim to uplift families in financial and social need, including a number of the existing shelters, soup kitchens and food pantries. Planning began in 2018, prior to the pandemic and ARPA, the American Rescue Plan Act. A Food Club goal is to seek an alternative to the long lines on drive-through distribution days at locations that range from Saginaw County CAC to Old Town Christian Outreach to East Side Soup Kitchen/Hidden Harvest to The Salvation Army.
In total, Saginaw’s fledgling Food Club, based on a Grand Rapids model, has raised $3.75 million toward a $5 million goal.
An Oct. 17 forum with neighborhood leaders took place to help kick off the survey for the remaining $1 million, and some participants asked whether the first priority for any sort of new grocery facility — Food Club or other — should be to make use of one of the still-solid vacant structures that dot the city’s neighborhoods, especially school buildings that remain.
In March, we reported that developer Anthony Denha had received city zoning approval to convert the former Walgreens at East Genesee and Hess into a mid-level grocery with fresh produce. In September, he said he would have an update before Thanksgiving. We have not been able to reach him since then. For the original report, click here.
