If Bill Winsor's vision becomes a reality, purchasers of medical supplies from across the globe will be arriving at Nashville International Airport next year and hopping a cab to downtown, where the Nashville Medical Trade Center will provide a one-stop shop for a wealth of healthcare-related products.

 

Winsor, president and CEO of Dallas-based Market Center Management Co., entered discussions with local officials late last year about the possibility of a downtown trade mart exclusively for the medical industry. The Nashville project would be Market Center Management's fourth trade center, but the only one dedicated to healthcare. Its market centers in Dallas, Brussels and Shanghai are retail related.

 

"It's a natural place for a medical trade center to occur," Winsor said of Nashville, citing the wealth of healthcare-related companies and providers, universities and research initiatives that call Middle Tennessee home.

 

The Nashville mart would feature permanent product showcases sponsored by a variety of manufacturers, wholesale representatives and product developers. In addition, the mart would organize several trade events annually, three or four days each, to draw in temporary exhibitors and convention-goers who would patronize downtown businesses.

 

Janet Miller, chief economic development and marketing officer for the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, said, "It could be so transformative to downtown Nashville, and it makes so much sense for Nashville. We're very hopeful and optimistic that it will be a good fit. It would be such a great economic generator."

 

Winsor was in Nashville in mid-June to take a look at three existing properties. He plans to buy one and launch an aggressive renovation to open the space by July 2010. That will mark the first of four development phases, eventually culminating in construction of a 1.5 million-square-foot, free-standing facility. Yet that facility wouldn't be large enough for the several large conventions annually, and Winsor said Nashville's plans to build a new downtown convention center dovetail perfectly with his plans.

 

"We would also use the new convention center and the existing convention center for trade shows and trade events that we develop in Nashville to support the healthcare industry," he said.

 

Nashville's new convention center is on the road to reality. In June, the Metro Council approved, on third and final reading, the purchase of the property. "Then it will just be a matter of months before they come back for approval from the Council on the financing package," Miller said.

 

Winsor plans to hit the ground running. "In our first year of operation, we want to develop four trade events and then grow that to six pretty significant events annually; and then do continuing-education seminars and training there on a full-time, ongoing basis," he said. Market Center Management would contract with established medical-training providers and professional organizations to handle the education portion of the mart's offerings.

 

As for the permanent exhibits, Winsor said he expects the primary focus to be hospital products – "anything on wheels" from furniture to surgical equipment and information technology systems. Trade events might focus on orthopedics, digital imaging or specific provider settings such as psychiatric or long-term care.

 

The Nashville mart would not be without competition, since development of a similar project is under way in Cleveland, Ohio. Yet Winsor doesn't appear worried. "There will only be one in my mind. I don't think the industry will support two. Not to talk ill of Cleveland, but if you look at the attributes of Nashville versus those of Cleveland, I think it's pretty apparent which one would be a better destination for this," he said. He called Nashville an "affordable and fun" destination that would be appealing to cost-conscious convention-goers in these lean economic times.

 

In fact, the challenging economy doesn't seem to concern Winsor at all. He believes a permanent, central purchasing location is cost effective for both buyers and sellers. And what about his company's development costs? "By taking an existing structure, we're not going to be borrowing money. We will pay for this out of our own cash flow," he said. When the time comes to seek financing for construction, perhaps 18 months down the road, Winsor expects an improved credit market.

 

Miller sees the mart project as a manna-from-heaven opportunity to build Nashville's healthcare brand. "It will really cement and raise up the profile of Nashville as the healthcare center of America. We'll have corporations and executives from all over the country and the world coming into this town," she said. "It will be a great magnet to lure other corporate headquarters for healthcare companies. It's just going to take the healthcare industry cluster that's already strong in Nashville and catapult it to a level that I think we can't even begin to dream of."

 

Market Center Management is a subsidiary of Crow Holdings, a privately held Dallas firm that specializes in making real estate investments on behalf of the Trammel Crow family and its investment partners.