Former ER doctor Ahlquist part of medical complex development planned for Meridian
Two of Idaho’s leading developers plan to join together to build a new medical campus at the corner of Idaho 16 and Chinden Boulevard just outside the Meridian city limits.
Tommy Ahlquist, who lost in the Republican primary for governor to Brad Little, and the Brighton Co. are partnering to build the campus on a 71-acre parcel that sits just east of the northeast corner of the intersection. It will be known as Central Valley Plaza and is expected to cost $100 million.
“The first building is 90,000 square feet and it will have a surgery center, it will have imaging and it will have physicians’ offices,” said Ahlquist, CEO of the newly formed Ball Ventures Ahlquist and a former emergency room doctor. “There will be a free-standing emergency room to follow and then, eventually, if all goes well, a hospital out there.”
Plans also call for a Veranda Senior Living center north of the medical building. Brighton has another center less than 4 miles east, off Chinden, and is building a new center on East Barber Valley Drive in Boise.
Brighton has owned the 71-acre parcel for this new development for 12 years and has leased it out as farmland.
Meridian, with a population that tops 100,000, has more than tripled in size in the past two decades. North Meridian has been the fastest-growing part of the city for many years, said David Turnbull, Brighton’s CEO.
HCA Healthcare, formerly known as the Hospital Corp. of America, will operate the medical facilities. The for-profit company, based in Nashville, Tennessee, operates West Valley Medical Center in Caldwell and Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center in Idaho Falls.
The developers said they will seek to have the property annexed into the city of Meridian, which stops at an adjacent property.
After the primary election, Ahlquist left as chief operating officer of the Gardner Co., which has been a major part of the development boom in the Treasure Valley, including Downtown Boise’s Eighth & Main building. He and Turnbull said they hope to begin construction next spring on the initial building of this new project and have it open a year later.
St. Luke’s and Saint Alphonsus operate medical centers in Eagle and St. Luke’s has a hospital just off Interstate 84 in Meridian at Eagle Road. This would be the first complex in north Meridian.
“It’s very nice to be in an area like this where services are needed,” Turnbull said. “We’re not coming into an area where you’re competing with a bunch of existing services. It gives us a chance to go out and find all the uses in that area where they’ve waited for something to happen.”
Ahlquist and Turnbull said they hope that development and other businesses will spring up in the area, allowing medical professionals and other workers to live nearby and have a short commute.
Turnbull said he envisions the Meridian project similar to the Boise Research Center, 12601 W. Explorer Drive, just west of the HP campus in Boise. Built a quarter-century ago, it consists of 160 acres and is the largest business park in Idaho. It has been successful in attracting professionals who want to live near they work, he said.
Robert Simison, chief of staff for Meridian Mayor Tammy de Weerd, said the development will be a positive.
“What you’ve heard the mayor and the city say is that we need family-wage jobs near to where people live,” Simison said. “And we’ve had a lot of people move to the north Meridian area, so having an employment hub of his nature and the jobs — doctors, nurses and others — it will be a great benefit to the area.”
This story was originally published September 26, 2018 at 7:02 PM.