posted on March 31, 2011 22:12
A boutique in the new Baylor Charles A. Sammons Cancer Center in East Dallas offers wigs, scarves and fashion advice to patents trying to keep a positive self-image as they cope with their disease. A demonstration kitchen shows patients and their families how to cook healthier, tastier meals even as radiation and chemotherapy cause their appetites to wane. A spacious gym is available to patients for rehabilitation.
Little touches like these — coupled with treatment from top cancer doctors using the best medical technology — will make the center a highly sought out destination for patients with many types of cancer, Baylor officials said at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the facility on Thursday.
"The patients are the focal point of everything we do here and everything we will do here," said Dr. Alan Miller, Baylor's chief of oncology and medical director of the center.
The $154 million, 10-story, 459,717-square foot facility officially opens to the public on Saturday, but Baylor officials and government and business leaders gathered Thursday morning for tours of the facility and a celebration.
The center was jointly developed by Indianapolis-based Duke Realty and Milwaukee-based Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co. Inc. on a 5-acre site leased from Baylor. The building is 94 percent leased and is anchored by Baylor Health System, with 252,977 square feet, and Texas Oncology, with 172,932 square feet. The remaining space is available for affiliated physicians.
The center houses a dedicated radiation oncology wing with four linear accelerators, as well as a diagnostic imaging center with MRI, PET and CT scanners. It also has an outpatient clinic and urgent care center; oncology, breast oncology, multidisciplinary and transplant clinics; infusion therapy and bone marrow transplant areas; and space for research and clinical trials.
The center also has an atrium, restaurant, café, coffee shop, gift shop, prosthetics retail, chapel, pharmacy, labs, terrace balconies, fountains and garden and meditation areas.
Until now, the Sammons Cancer Center, established 35 years ago, has functioned out of a 55,000-square-foot building across the street. That building is being converted to an inpatient facility as part of a separate $37.4 million, 181,432-square foot renovation project that is under way and scheduled to be completed in 2013. The two buildings are linked by an enclosed sky bridge.
The project is on track to receive Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, developers said.
The development process for the new center began in May 2008 and construction began in April 2009. In February 2010, the cancer center was recognized as the winner of the Best Medical Project in the Dallas Business Journal's Best Real Estate Deals contest.
3/24/11, Bill Hethcock, Dallas Business Journal