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By Holly O
’Brien
It’s 2 a.m. and your 8-year-old has just had an emergency
liver transplant. You’re at the hospital, but you live 80
miles away.
Where do you go for the night?
For family members of Barnes-Jewish Hospital patients, the answer
may literally be right down the hall. The new Parkway Hotel—which
is connected to Barnes-Jewish by an indoor walkway—is one
of a handful of highly-specialized hotels in the U.S. located adjacent
to a major health care facility.
General Manager April Risk and Ambassador Hospitality
Partner Richard Darragh inside the lobby of the new
Parkway Hotel. |
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April Risk, general manager of the Parkway, says the Central West
End hotel provides much more than a bed for the night. “We
may pick up a prescription, move a hospital bed into a hotel room,
or get Barnes security to escort a guest in the wee hours of the
morning,” Risk explains. “We ask questions, and we find
out ahead of time how we can make someone’s stay more comfortable.”
The Parkway opened Nov. 17, 2003, and is the first property of Ambassador
Hospitality LLC. The 220-room hotel features 28 rooms that are ADA
(Americans with Disabilities Act) compliant. Risk explains that
the hotel industry normally receives only one request for an ADA-compliant
room per 1,000 stays, yet her property has set aside over 10 percent
of its space for such rooms.
“Eighty-five percent of our traffic is hospital-related,”
Risk says. “We’re not just a place to stay, we’re
here to take care of people.”
Ambassador Hospitality is a partnership between Richard Darragh,
Jim and Jack Pohrer, and Carl Privatera. Paric Corp served as the
construction manager and general contractor.
“The Parkway project was extremely exciting,” says Carl
Eisenhauer, project manager for Paric. “It was a tight sight,
right on hospital property. The walkway is an invaluable feature,
because from the hotel you can literally get to any building within
the complex—the Siteman Cancer Center, Children’s Hospital,
Barnes, the Center for Advanced Medicine. You park once, and you’re
within steps from where you need to be, all indoors.”
"WE
WERE PARTICULARLY CONCERNED ABOUT THE FAMILIES OR
EXTENDED-CARE PATIENTS."'
lRev. Lawrence
Biondi
president,
St. Louis University
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Across town, Saint Louis University (SLU) opened the 62-room Water
Tower Inn in February 2002. Although the inn is not directly located
next to Tenet’s Saint Louis University Hospital, the Rev.
Lawrence Biondi, SLU president, says the hospital was a key consideration
in his decision to open the Water Tower.
“The idea for the hotel came out of a need felt by university
parents, alumni, visiting athletic teams, patients and patients’
families at Saint Louis University Hospital,” Biondi says.
“We were particularly concerned about the families of extended-care
patients at area hospitals, especially nearby Saint Louis University
Hospital and Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital.”
Located on the fifth and sixth floors of the former Incarnate Word
Hospital, near Interstate 44 and Grand Boulevard, the inn charges
up to 30 percent less than traditional hotels. Ralf Lucas, director
of guest services for Saint Louis University Hospital, wishes there
were more properties with user-friendly rates and close proximity
to health care facilities.
“Our hospitals are tertiary facilities, which means that these
patients have more acute needs than patients at an average community
hospital,” Lucas says. “As a result, they’re here
longer, and the families could really benefit from properties that
serve this niche.”
Non-profit entities—such as the venerable Ronald McDonald
House—have been serving patients’ families at no cost
for decades. But are business collaborations between hospitals and
the hotel industry the wave of the future? Not necessarily, says
Darragh.
“The Parkway was modeled after the Jesse Jones Rotary House
at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Just because you’re
adjacent to a hospital doesn’t guarantee high occupancy rates,”
he says. “You need to have a nationally-recognized hospital,
one in the top five or top 10 (in the U.S.).”
| ST.
LOUIS FACILITIES THAT CATER TO PATIENT'S FAMILIES
Parkway
Hotel
4550 Forest Park Blvd.
(314) 256-7777
Saint
Louis University’s Water Tower Inn
3545 Lafayette Ave.
(314) 977-7500
Barnes
Lodge at Barnes–Jewish Hospital
4520 Clayton Ave.
(314) 652-4319 or (800) 551-3492
Ronald
McDonald House
4381 West Pine Blvd.
(314) 531-6601
Ronald
McDonald House
3450 Park Ave.
(314) 773-1100
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Darragh also stresses that the hospital and the hotel must have
similar needs—along with the resources to build and operate
a property of about 150 rooms. “In hospitality, that’s
a magic number in terms of recouping costs,” he says. “But,
more importantly, you need the right staff who really understands
that this is not just any hotel, and these are not just any guests.
When my general manager asks me to say hello to a special guest,
it’s not just ‘thanks for staying with us.’ There
is no formula for duplicating this. It’s too special.”
Darragh knows this firsthand. When he was a teenager, his mother
was being treated at Stanford Medical Center, 90 miles from her
home. Every day, his older sisters made the drive.
“People at the Parkway will be very touched by their guests,
and vice versa,” predicts Kathy Rascher, manager of guest
services for Barnes-Jewish. “The staff represents something
that is familiar, friendly and safe—even though the visitor
is in town for something scary.”
Risk remembers the Parkway’s grand opening in November. “We
had press, and we gave away a huge basket to our very first guests.
There was a lot of fanfare. Several weeks ago, one of the staff
told me there was someone in the lobby to see me. It was the gentleman
who was our first guest. He said, ‘I need to thank you and
your staff for the most wonderful stay. My wife and I had such a
special evening, and we really enjoyed the basket and being together
here. That was our last night out. After months of treatment, she
passed away. But I’ll never forget how you treated us.’”
Holly O’Brien is a freelance writer based in St. Louis. |
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