County system drops plans to buy Hermann facility

The Harris County (Texas) Hospital District has terminated its plans to purchase a 469-bed hospital and much of the surrounding medical campus in southwest Houston from Memorial Hermann Healthcare System just one month after a letter of intent between the two providers was announced.

Administrators with the publicly owned district said they terminated the non-binding agreement to purchase Memorial Hermann Southwest Hospital because Memorial Hermann officials demanded that the due diligence process be accelerated earlier than the Nov. 30 anticipated closing date.

“Given the legal, financial, and operational complexity of the proposed transaction, the Harris County Hospital District concluded that Memorial Hermann's request to accelerate the process was neither feasible not realistic,” according to a news release from the district.

The termination means that the 851-bed hospital district will continue with its previously announced plans to expand through new construction, including a 122,000-square-foot ambulatory care tower on the district's Holly Hall campus to house diagnostic and specialty clinics. Those plans had been put on hold after hospital district officials decided that purchasing existing facilities might be a more efficient use of resources than building new.

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