The charter tenants for Cleveland Medical Mart & Convention Center (Cleveland MMCC) were introduced this past Friday, at a groundbreaking held in front of more than 600 business, civic, community, and political leaders.

Fifty-seven Medical Mart tenants and 31 conferences, conventions, and trade shows were unveiled for Cleveland MMCC, which is scheduled for completion in fall of 2013.

The tenants represent a broad spectrum of the healthcare market including healthcare information technology, medical devices, healthcare design, medical education and media, as well as some of the industry’s known healthcare providers.
 
The list includes IT vendors such as Hyland Software, NOViCAST and Innovative Medical Systems, and providers and research institutions such as Cleveland Clinic, Case Western Reserve University and MetroHealth System.

In addition, Cuyahoga Community College plans to lease space in MMCC to demo patient simulation training, to hold continuing ed classes and to generally offer exposure to students in healthcare fields, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Located in downtown Cleveland, MMCC will feature some of the most recent technology available in the healthcare market, and an adjoining convention center with 230,000 square feet of exhibit space.

Chris Kennedy, president of Merchandise Mart Properties, Inc. (MMPI), the Chicago-based trade show and property management firm that will operate the complex, said MMPI has "letters of intent" for 100 percent of the 235,000 square feet in the $465 million Medical Mart, according to Crain's Cleveland Business.

"Too much demand is never a serious problem,” Kennedy told Crain's. “We'll work to accommodate everyone."

Some others were more tempered in their remarks, however. The Plain Dealer points out that at least 30 of the 57 prospective tenants are tied to Northeast Ohio, and says that "few of the tenants have national stature."

"It shows a lot of local support," J. B. Silvers, a healthcare finance professor at Case Western Reserve University, told the Plain Dealer. "The question is how much national support will they get over time."

Meanwhile, developers of the complex's primary competitor, Tennessee's Nashville Medical Trade Center, took a dim view. "The emperor in Cleveland has no clothes," Cole Daugherty, spokesman for Dallas-based Market Center Management Co., told the Plain Dealer. "The announcement from Cleveland is not a list of tenants with leases, but rather a list of companies from the region with non-binding letters of intent."

The Nashville Medical Trade Center announced in April that its first anchor tenant would be the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), which recently purchased a controlling interest in Healthcare IT News.

But Cleveland City Council President Martin J. Sweeney was bullish on the idea that the taxpayer-funded project would, three years hence, "be a jewel in the crown of the queen we call Cleveland."