With big plans in mind, a core Memphis institution – Regional One Health – will move to the former home of another Memphis institution with the purchase of the old Commercial Appeal building at 495 Union Ave.
The investment is the latest development in an effort to build a modern campus to serve the hospital’s growing needs. Along with being the region’s only level 1 trauma center, Regional One is a teaching hospital that partners with nearby University of Tennessee Health Science Center.
“We want this to be a destination people come to for critical care, like other academic hospitals across the country,” said Reginald Coopwood, MD, Regional One Health president and CEO.
A new facility will help the medical center’s various departments, such as surgery, obstetrics, internal medicine and radiology, keep pace with Coopwood’s ambitions. It will also provide an up-to-date workspace for healthcare professionals and those in training.
“It will also help us design where we have better access to care; where we will be able to create a true academic medical center; where there will be research, education and teaching; and bring critical care in order to improve the health of Mid-Southerners,” said Coopwood.
In addition to being a bridge between Memphis’ medical district and Union Avenue, the planned facility could eventually become “a gateway” to Downtown.
“Hopefully, we can get Union row up and going. And all that property between there…almost down to The Peabody,” said Coopwood. “We want it to be an economic stimulus for this community.”
The six-acre parcel is one of six properties Regional One packaged in the deal. The other adjacent parcels run alongside the Union property or border Beale Street directly to the south. The total cost for the cumulative 16 acres is $24.9 million.
Like the old Commercial Appeal building, most of the properties have sat empty or neglected for years. The deal came together once the property where the newspaper’s warehouse sat was added to the bundle.
The warehouse property had previously been snapped up by a subsidiary of a California-based self-storage company for $3.725 million in March 2024. A new storage facility was about 70 percent complete when construction was halted by the sale to Regional One Health.
Shelby County Commissioners approved the purchase in late January. Members previously approved $350 million toward the Regional One project in 2023. Total costs could run between $1 billion and $1.5 billion.
Regional One officials are hopeful the state will supply additional funding this legislative session. To date, Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris’ efforts to sway lawmakers into chipping in have failed.
Philanthropy is expected to make up the rest.
With deed in hand, the programming phase can begin. It is expected to take around four months. It will be followed by the design phase, which will take another 12-18 months. The Commercial Appeal building will be demolished.
“That puts the construction phase roughly 18 to 24 months away,” Coopwood said. “It is expected to take five to seven years to be fully completed.”
The new purchase ended up being “Plan B,” as the original plan was to rebuild the new hospital on the current footprint, which would have required building and tearing down in stages over many years. The plan was considered challenging because patient care would have to continue in existing buildings while construction was underway.
Regional One originally intended to construct half of the new building on the current Jefferson Avenue site with the other half slated for the site of the Molecular Science Building on Madison Avenue. However, a deal to purchase the Madison property from the University of Tennessee Health Science Center fell through.
Together, the purchased bundle of properties are significantly larger. Being adjacent to one another, they will allow architects to design a contiguous facility. The off-site purchase will also permit hospital operations to continue without disruptions, delays or workspace limitations when construction begins.
“There are significant benefits to having a larger footprint, as well as not having to do it where we are actually working,” said Coopwood.
The original project also had a longer timeline; estimated completion was eight to ten years.
After purchasing The Commercial Appeal newspaper, owner Gannett Co. Inc. moved the paper’s print operations off-site in 2017. Two years later, day-to-day operations moved to 120 N. Front St. The move to a smaller home followed several rounds of layoffs of full-time employees.
