New buildings off I-84 could help this city reach goal of becoming “medical epicenter”

Meridian Mayor Robert Simison said last year that he envisioned his city becoming a medical epicenter in the Treasure Valley.

The latest addition of two new medical buildings near the Eagle Road interchange on Interstate 84 could help his vision take shape.

The Watts Meridian Medical Partners subdivision would include two medical buildings on 2½ acres, at 1256 S. Rackham Way.

The developer, Rigby Watts and Co., is based in Utah. According to its website , Rigby Watts has developed a number of medical buildings near Salt Lake City.

The north most building would be built first and accommodate the first tenants.

In Simison’s State of the City address in June 2023, he said Idaho State University and Saint Alphonsus Health System planned to expand services and health care education to Meridian. He hoped these plans would launch the city, particularly the area between St. Luke’s Medical Center at Eagle Road and I-84, and the location of the ISU medical campus on Locust Grove Road and I-84, to become a health care epicenter.

“Much of our current, and I believe future, economy is based around health care,” Simison said then. “We are seeing the health care industry become a larger driving force in our economy every day.”

Simison said he wanted to reevaluate the city’s planned uses around I-84 and Eagle Road to encourage medical development. That includes the area now planned for the Watts Meridian Medical campus.

Medical-hub idea dates back at least 15 years

Simison’s ambitions echo those of his predecessor, Tammy de Weerd, who sought in the late 2000s to make a six-square-mile area around Eagle Road and I-84 into a center for health care, technology and industry. The St. Luke’s Meridian Medical Center and the ISU center were still new then.

De Weerd said in a 2009 State of the City speech that those institutions would attract health care-related businesses to “support our existing industries by bringing together like-minded or complementary companies,” the Idaho Statesman reported.

The six-square mile area was dubbed The Core, a label seldom used today. The area had already attracted the the Portico East and Portico West medical office buildings, the Idaho Urologic Institute and other businesses.

Idaho’s first medical school, the Idaho College of Osteopathic Medicine , was later built alongside ISU and admitted its first class in 2018.

The Meridian City Council approved the Watts medical subdivision unanimously on Tuesday, April 2.

Business and Local News Editor David Staats contributed.

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