Florida State University and Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare have announced plans that would create an academic health center and slowly rebrand the hospital to FSU Health.
In an email announcing the news, FSU President Richard McCullough praised the proposed partnership.
“This bold initiative not only expands our frontiers in education, research, and health care, but also promises to revolutionize future access to advanced, high-quality care for our community. We look forward to presenting our plan to the City of Tallahassee in the coming days," he said.
Details on what exactly the plan look like are still not public. The partnership would also need to be approved by the Tallahassee City Commission.
Commissioner Jeremy Matlow has been one of the loudest voices against it. He told WFSU he does not think the city should lose a locally controlled asset to a state-controlled authority like Florida State University.
"It's a billion dollar public asset that's owned by the people of Tallahassee, and the fact that we would just like, hand it over or transfer it to state government and Ron DeSantis in this climate seems kind of insane to me," he said.
Supporters of the sale have argued it could lead to economic development, jobs and improved medical access in Tallahassee and the Panhandle, similar to the effect UF Health has had on central Florida.
City Commissioner Jack Porter wrote in a statement that she wants to see more voices and public debate brought to the table before the city makes a final decision.
“We want the best deal for the city residents, whose healthcare costs have funded TMH since the beginning and we want to make sure to get the best deal possible for taxpayers, local governance, and public healthcare,” she wrote in a statement.
Commissioner Dianne Williams-Cox said she is cautiously optimistic about the progress.
"I look forward to the next steps," she wrote in a text to WFSU Public Media.
Commissioner Curtis Richardson told WFSU he sees nothing but good things coming out of the partnership, both in terms of healthcare access and the region's economy.
"It will be able to offer additional care for those in the area, and those specialty areas that people now have to go out of the area to receive. It will be able to provide increased indigent care for those who are under insured or uninsured in our area. And so I see nothing but positives coming out of this for our community and for our region," he said.
Richardson, Williams-Cox and Mayor John Dailey have previously sided with the university on other large policy decisions, like a $27 million Blueprint allocation for renovations to Doak Campbell Stadium in 2022.
The commission next meets tomorrow, Sept. 16.