It’s hard to remember that Springhill Drive in North Little Rock, where two major medical projects are now under construction, wasn’t always synonymous with health care.
Before ground was broken on Baptist Health Medical Center-North Little Rock in 1996, Springhill was best known as the lonely Interstate 40 location of ABF Freight’s central Arkansas terminal.
Baptist Health, which was operating an aging city-owned hospital near Fort Roots on North Little Rock’s east side, looked west to relocate. It bought 157 acres on the north side of I-40 at Springhill for $8.7 million and an additional 30 acres south of the interstate for $310,000 to fast-track construction of a new interchange accommodating both east- and westbound traffic.
The 330,000-SF hospital, with a $53 million construction component and almost that much in related costs, topped Arkansas Business’ list of the largest commercial projects in the state in 1997. It opened on Nov. 6, 1999 — a month after the downtown entertainment venue then known as Alltel Arena (see Arena’s Arrival Set Stage for Redevelopment).
Both of those projects will mark their 20th anniversaries this year, and both transformed their parts of town, which is exactly what was predicted in the ancient days before Y2K.
CHI St. Vincent North also opened that fall, barely 3 miles from Baptist Health on Springhill but in the Sherwood city limits.
“I think the excitement is contagious and the opportunities are becoming more apparent,” North Little Rock’s mayor, Patrick Henry Hays, told Arkansas Business in August 1999.
Part of the excitement at the time was the prospect of a Cracker Barrel restaurant, which sprang up at the new interchange, and hotels that have gradually filled nooks and crannies near the hospitals and along Highway 67/167 between I-40 and Sherwood.
“We do have a significant portion of our business that comes from hospital-related travel, everything from vendors working on the machinery to residency candidates for the program and, of course, families coming in,” said Cristen Sullivan, general manager of the Fairfield Inn by Marriott at 4120 Health Care Drive, an offshoot of Springhill.
“We’re right here on the hospital campus, so we have an excellent relationship with them. But North Little Rock sees a lot of business travelers. That is the bulk of our business, and it’s companies you may never have heard of.”
Alaa Williams is general manager of the Residence Inn by Marriott next door to the Fairfield Inn, and she echoed Sullivan.
“We actually sit on the back of hospital property. That’s one of our top accounts. We have a lot of businesspeople who stay here too.”
Springhill connects I-40 to East McCain Boulevard, which sprouted a Lowe’s Home Center in 2002 and a Walmart Supercenter in 2003. Typical outparcel development like restaurants and small retailers followed suit, as did smaller medical clinics and even more hotels.
Baptist Building
Traffic coming off I-40 at Springhill today encounters a four-story, 150,000-SF project nearing completion on nine acres adjacent to the hospital: Baptist Health’s new multiuse office and educational facility.
Construction is expected to be finished in August, according to the timeline on CDI Contractors’ website, and the building is tentatively set to open in September, according to Baptist Health spokeswoman Cara Wade.
The building, designed by Lewis Architects Engineers of Little Rock, will be the home of the Graduate Medical Education Program that is a joint project of Baptist Health and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Wade said in an email.
“Baptist Health Internal Medicine Clinic and Baptist Health Family Medicine Clinic will relocate inside,” she said.
“Both clinics will serve as opportunities for the residents in Internal Medicine and Family Medicine to practice in a clinical setting.”
CDI’s description of the project says that roughly half of the building will be left unfinished “to accommodate future growth.”
CARTI Stands Alone
CARTI, the Little Rock cancer treatment provider, has had a presence on Baptist Health’s Springhill campus since the beginning. Early next year, CARTI expects to move across the street to a $7 million, 24,000-SF standalone facility leased from owner and developer Manoj Patel of SETU Inc.
At a ceremonial groundbreaking in March, North Little Rock Mayor Joe Smith called the two-story project an “exclamation point” on the medical corridor.
“It was time for us to offer our patients comfort through a new clinic,” Melissa Masingill, CARTI’s vice president for marketing and business development, said last week.
Currently, CARTI’s practitioners are spread across three floors in the hospital, she said.
Polk Stanley Wilcox designed the building, which will offer patients from points north of Little Rock “a more enhanced experience” for both infusion and radiation treatments, Masingill said. The contractor is Dave Grundfest Co. of Little Rock.
“We are patient-centered. We are committed to bringing excellent patient care to the communities we serve,” she said.
Sarah Campbell-Miller contributed to this report.
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