FIU ‘Medical City’ at MIA


The Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine has been invited by Odebrecht USA to participate in the development and design of an Airport City at Miami International Airport.

The vision for the project is to create a landmark urban center at MIA. For FIU this partnership is consistent with our commitment to community engagement, as it puts our Wertheim College of Medicine at the center of a project that promises to help attract patients to Miami from throughout the world and increase access to health care for local residents. The central location of MIA will become even more attractive as a healthcare hub in the coming years as our community develops a more robust public transportation infrastructure.

Odebrecht USA has completed the Request for Proposal requirements and expects to make a presentation to the Miami-Dade Aviation Department’s Advisory Team on November 13, 2009. On that same day, the Advisory Team will rank the proposals and announce their recommendation. The top-ranked proposer will be invited to begin negotiations with the County in December.  The proposed multi-million dollar project, to be built on several open acres just east of the main terminal, would be privately funded.  This project ultimately would have to go before the Miami-Dade County Commission for final review.

Odebrecht has a solid record, having built more than 45 major projects throughout the U.S., including our own football stadium. The Airport City project includes three components: a luxury hotel with retail space, an airport utility plant and a medical services campus complex, where FIU would bring together our affiliates and other partners to offer state-of-the art outpatient services.  The Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine is participating through the university’s healthcare business subsidiary — the Florida International University College of Medicine Healthcare Network Faculty Group Practice (FIU HCN).

FIU’s HCN will serve in a strategic and active role as consultant in the development of the FIU Medical City at MIA. The complex is tentatively divided in five areas of service: multi-specialty and primary care, sports medicine, women’s health, ambulatory surgery and diagnostics and imaging. We anticipate the FIU HCN role to be focused on consulting and advising, feasibility, planning, and coordination of healthcare services for the FIU Medical City. The Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine and the FIU HCN are strategically focused on optimizing the strengths and leveraging the capacity of health care in the local area through our existing affiliations with health systems such as Jackson Health System, Mount Sinai Medical Center, Baptist Health System of Florida, and Miami Children’s Hospital; we also anticipate an affiliation with a prominent national health system with significant international services. Many of the local affiliated health systems have shown an interest in having a presence and participation in this project. A key to our decision to partner in the project relates to our community’s efforts to position itself for growth in medical tourism, and we believe that a medical service complex at MIA is an essential element of the foundation for this growth.

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