Southsider Voice correspondent
The 10- and 12-story towers of the old St. Francis Medical Center in Beech Grove are available on a lease basis through DealPoint Merrill.
The brochure on the property describes the site as a “multi-tenant medical office campus” consisting of nearly 1 million square feet on 13.73 acres.
DealPoint Merrill said it would prefer to lease the property to a single medical or governmental medical office user.
Amenities include 1,315 parking spaces, with 718 of them adjacent to the main building and a parking garage with 413 spaces, as well as conference facilities, a cafeteria, a chapel and an auditorium.
The brochure, which can be viewed at www.beechgrove.com, promotes Indianapolis as home of the country’s largest drug and medical research companies plus Indiana University Health. Promoting potential uses, the pamphlet points out that approximately 45,000 workers are employed in medical jobs in Downtown Indianapolis.
DealPoint Merrill is part of The Merrill Group, a privately held real estate development and property management firm that has offices in California, Nevada and Beijing.
One of the company’s specialties is redevelopment and adaptive reuse of properties.
Owned by Franciscan St. Francis Health, the medical facilities were relocated to the new St. Francis campus, 8111 S. Emerson Ave., which opened in 1995 and has undergone continued expansion. The original hospital was founded in 1914 by the Order of Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration.
Beech Grove has placed the property on the property tax rolls, but that move is being appealed by St. Francis Health. Whether or not the sale of the property is imminent is not known.
More area development
Through the Beech Grove Redevelopment Commission, the former Rock Pile property is being developed as a $10.2 million apartment complex for seniors 55 years and older.
Farther south in Greenwood, there was good news just a few weeks after the announcement that the Kmart near Smith Valley Road and U.S. 31 would be closed. The soon-to-be vacated building will become a new location for Rural King, with renovations to be finished in early 2015 and a targeted grand opening in late May or April.
The site is next to a long-vacated Marsh grocery store. Greenwood city officials said they hope that the future Rural King opening will spur redevelopment of the adjacent building.