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St. Joseph Medical Center At 1401 St. Joseph Pkwy.


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I could of swore there was a thread covering St. Joseph's future. If anyone finds it feel free to merge :)

Anyways, it looks like the 119year old Hospital has found a new buyer. It appears that the new owner will continue running it as it has been.

I think some people suggested turning it into housing, I'm glad it will still remain a hospital. Yeah housing especially moderately priced housing would be a plus for downtown growth, but a hospital is a much needed amenity for the neighborhood.

Here's the Chronicle story

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you know, when i saw that article, i came here and searched (and searchd and searched) and couldn't find any topics. i also swear i remember reading a thread about the possibility of it changing hands...

weird :unsure:

Edited by sevfiv
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  • 5 months later...
New owner names leader for St. Joseph Medical Center

Hospital Partners of America's purchase of downtown Houston's historic Christus St. Joseph Hospital has officially closed, and Phillip D. Robinson has been tapped to lead the transition to a physician-owned facility.

Charlotte, N.C.-based HPA announced in March its intent to buy Christus St. Joseph, which will now be known as St. Joseph Medical Center.

http://www.bizjournals.com/houston/stories...63&hbx=e_du

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  • 4 months later...
I could of swore there was a thread covering St. Joseph's future. If anyone finds it feel free to merge :)

Anyways, it looks like the 119year old Hospital has found a new buyer. It appears that the new owner will continue running it as it has been.

I think some people suggested turning it into housing, I'm glad it will still remain a hospital. Yeah housing especially moderately priced housing would be a plus for downtown growth, but a hospital is a much needed amenity for the neighborhood.

Here's the Chronicle story

THEN WHAT? :rolleyes:

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  • 1 month later...
  • 2 years later...

Question: What is the purpose of the professional building, and who are the tenants? Is it like other professional buildings that are basically just doctors' offices? From a design standpoint, it is an interesting, overwhelming addition. But from a cost standpoint, I see it is completely wasteful.

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Just what downtown Houston needs, the gigantic white outline of a cross slathered across both sides of a building not designed to accommodate it.

It's one thing to make a statement, and if I may paraphrase Voltaire (because I'm too lazy to verify the quote), I may disagree with what they're saying but I will forever defend their right to say it. However, the design of the statement is in poor taste. They should have just erected a clean purpose-built cross much the same way as the church off of Beltway 8 near the Gulf Freeway did.

...or they could've allocated the funds to indigent care. That would've been very Christ-like.

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Nonsense. HPA moved tangentially away from Christus' philosophy when they bought the hospital, modified the name, imposed a star on the cross in their logo so much that you hardly notice the cross, giving the impression that it will be strictly business henceforth.

Then after struggling for about two years with their poor business concept, they did what even Christus never do, put giant crosses that makes me think of the building as an annex of the Vatican more than a professional building. Still doesn't make their business concept better. Just my opinion.

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...Then after struggling for about two years with their poor business concept, they did what even Christus never do, put giant crosses that makes me think of the building as an annex of the Vatican more than a professional building.

If that were the case, it should be red neon. It's Pentecost, after all.

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  • 3 weeks later...

It caught me by surprise at first. I thought, had it always looked like that and I just didn't notice? But now you've confirmed that it is a new look. Well, it looks good. It fits the proportion of a building that was otherwise quite unremarkable. There wasn't not much to look at as one headed north into downtown on 45 after the I-59 interchange.

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As soon as we let Continental get away with illuminating the top of their building with their logo... it was down hill from there.

As I made the curve around the Pierce elevated from Allen Parkway, headed south... I was like: Jesus! Then I had to stop myself: "Hey... wait a minute... That's the response they're going for!"

It appeared to be illuminated by several thousand incandescent bulbs. Chaser lights, blue neon, and strobes would have better.

It sure is nice, and refreshing even, to see some of that suburban B-8 taste make it right to the middle of downtown.

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Just what downtown Houston needs, the gigantic white outline of a cross slathered across both sides of a building not designed to accommodate it.

It's one thing to make a statement, and if I may paraphrase Voltaire (because I'm too lazy to verify the quote), I may disagree with what they're saying but I will forever defend their right to say it. However, the design of the statement is in poor taste. They should have just erected a clean purpose-built cross much the same way as the church off of Beltway 8 near the Gulf Freeway did.

...or they could've allocated the funds to indigent care. That would've been very Christ-like.

...purpose-built? The cross at B-8, given its enormous size, like this recent St. Joe addition, is not "purpose built." They just scream: "We're here, we're Christians, get used to us!" Kind of like a polite, Christian way, of giving the rest of the world a big giant middle finger.

A purpose built cross would be about 10 feet high, made of lumber, made for hanging bodies on. Or maybe I am describing a "functional" cross? ...

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I thought houston was the most religously diverse city in the whole bible belt. building 150 ft crosses on the north and south entrances are like making people think if you go into the city you will be forced to be a christian. and building a cross by the Hobby airport and ellington field is just as dangerous.Bollucks

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I thought houston was the most religously diverse city in the whole bible belt. building 150 ft crosses on the north and south entrances are like making people think if you go into the city you will be forced to be a christian.

I tend not to think of Houston being in the 'Bible Belt'. I think of the belt as going from about Georgia through the South, and then sweeping up through north Texas and continuing northward through the plains states.

As for the symbology: "I prefer to leave symbols to the symbol-minded." --George Carlin

and building a cross by the Hobby airport and ellington field is just as dangerous.Bollucks

Only Hobby Airport has a runway aligned in such a way as would put one of the giant crosses in a flight path, but the end of that runway is four miles away from the nearest gigantic cross. If a plane is flying only 150 feet off the ground at four miles away from the runway, it's because it's about to crash.

If the cross were a legitimate concern, first of all the FAA would've been all over it. And secondly, there'd probably be a slew of low-rise office buildings along JFK Blvd. that are under the flight path of a runway that ends only one mile away that would probably need to be demolished as well.

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I'm not generally a big fan of loud religion, but from a marketing perspective I don't really object to this. With the prominence of the Med Center, it's tough for other inner-loop hospitals to attract attention to themselves, and St. Joseph's has been struggling to survive over the years. Somehow I see this more as an attempt to draw attention to its differentiating characteristic (its Catholic affiliation) than to blast Houston with religious symbols.

What has always seemed strange to me about St. Joseph's is that its professional building is across the Pierce Elevated from the hospital. It's not exactly a dense section of downtown today -- when it was built, were all the blocks north of I-45 occupied?

Edited by MyEvilTwin
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