'The best is yet to come': Christus Spohn Memorial Hospital honored ahead of demolition

Christus Spohn Memorial Hospital is a special place for Mary Spicak.

The career medical professional started as an ICU nurse at the beloved facility on Corpus Christi’s Westside more than 35 years ago. Over the years, while helping care for countless of the region’s sickest and most injured patients, she has chronicled stories of the hospital’s notable patients and its role in the community.

When it came time for the start of the demolition of Memorial on Monday, she shared some of those stories.

“All in all,” said Spicak, 63, “I am honored to be part of the Memorial team, and I will carry these memories with me forever.”

Emotions ran high as Spicak and scores of hospital personnel, elected officials and community leaders gathered on Monday to bless the nearly 80-year-old facility ahead of its demolition, with attendees squeezing under a tent to shelter from the heavy rain.

Spicak detailed a handful of stories that show how Memorial was at the nexus of history — and sometimes tragedy — for Corpus Christi.

She described fielding phone calls in 2006 from national and international media outlets as the hospital cared for Harry Whittington, the attorney shot by then-U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney during a hunting accident. At the time, she said she had “never seen so many men in black,” referring to the black suits worn by Cheney’s security detail.

She recounted the rush in 2001 to save Nueces County sheriff’s deputy David Garcia, who was shot five times by a man in Bishop who had asked for a ride. She said she and hospital staff “nearly lost him” multiple times shortly after Garcia arrived at Memorial.

She also recalled the sadness among hospital staff when Tejano superstar Selena Quintanilla Perez, a local icon, died in the hospital’s care after the singer was shot in 1995.

“We could be here all day, and I could talk to you about memories, but those are just a few stories,” she said. “There are many, many more.”

First named Memorial Hospital to honor veterans who died serving in World War II, the facility underwent several expansions and renovations to become the nine-story hospital complex on Hospital Boulevard.

Demolition of the facility began Monday afternoon and is expected to be complete sometime in the summer of 2023, said Gloria Madera, a spokesperson for Christus Health. Christus Spohn contracted Utah-based Grant Mackay Demolition Co., which has an office in Houston, to perform the multiphase demolition for $5.9 million — a cost incurred by Christus and not taxpayers.

The decision by the Nueces County Hospital District and the Nueces County Commissioners Court to demolish Memorial was met with intense public backlash in 2014, according to previous Caller-Times reporting. However, opponents were unable to secure the necessary signatures to put the issue on the ballot as a referendum.

The two primary structures that make up Memorial are more than 30 years “past their useful life,” said Jonny Hipp, CEO of the Nueces County Hospital District. The decision to level the hospital, he said, ultimately hinged on the cost of replacing the hospital.

To demolish the two buildings and erect a smaller, 150-bed hospital would have required a bond issue and consideration by voters. Such a bond, Hipp said, would’ve been burdensome to taxpayers.

The demolition was slated for March 2020 but was delayed, in part, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Demolition was cleared to begin after remediation began and the last department in the facility, the behavioral health unit, relocated to Christus Spohn Hospital Shoreline earlier this year, said Christus Spohn President and CEO Dr. Osbert Blow.

Blow, who has said most of his clinicals took place at Memorial, said the hospital’s last patient exited the facility on Sept. 13. He said Monday’s ceremony was more “sweet than bitter.”

In part to offset the decommissioning of the hospital, Christus Spohn built the Dr. Hector P. Garcia Memorial Family Health Center, which opened in 2017 and, like Memorial, is on Hospital Boulevard. Though it is a relatively young facility, Hipp said it is “bursting at the seams” and that a study is underway on an expansion of that facility.

Plans Christus Spohn provided to Nueces County commissioners in August indicate the footprint of the hospital will become “green space,” or an area of grass or trees set apart for recreational or aesthetic purposes, after the demolition.

What will ultimately be built on the property remains to be seen, though it is required to be health care-related due to a covenant on the property, Hipp said.

“The future has yet to be determined, but I think it's going to be amazing,” Blow said.

Nueces County Judge Barbara Canales, who spoke at the event alongside county Commissioner Joe A. Gonzalez and voiced support for expanding the family center named for her great uncle, laid out a vision that includes the possibility of an educational institution for medical professionals in the area and an adolescent-focused mental health and intellectual disabilities crisis center.

"This ground does not change. It shall always be reserved for health care,” Canales said. “The best is yet to come.”

This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: Christus Spohn Memorial Hospital honored ahead of demolition