By Sean Slater, senior principal, RDC Architecture & Planning In today’s evolving retail landscape, one of the most promising — and often overlooked — opportunities lies in the land surrounding our nation’s hospitals and medical centers. As healthcare systems continue to expand and consolidate, savvy development executives recognize the immense potential of strategically positioning retail properties in locations that are adjacent to major medical facilities. Doing so combines consistent foot traffic, demographic advantages and an urgent need for community-focused amenities. This was the scenario that RDC’s placemaking design team faced at the Texas Medical Center’s (TMC) new TMC3 research and development campus south of the massive healthcare cluster near downtown Houston. On any given day at that sprawling site, more than 100,000 people — about the seating capacity of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum — come to work, while 27,400 patients visit one of the 21 associated hospitals. Many of them are international visitors staying at local hotels with significant downtime. Kristen Kupperman, TMC’s vice president of design, construction and facilities, introduced RDC’s design team to this problem, saying that there are 80,000 women who work at TMC every day, yet there is nowhere to get a manicure and nowhere …
