Jackson’s Most Vacated Hospital Gets Another New Owner

There's an often-vacated building at 110 N Elm Avenue in Jackson, Michigan, that has changed hands and eventually been left empty, only to be scooped up by another entity and have the process repeat itself. WSYM reports that this "medical building that could" has welcomed new occupants—again. Michigan Psychological Care recently purchased the 56,000-square-foot building. This is tremendous news.

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The last time I was on the property, someone jabbed a cotton swab through my car window and into my nostril. While it would be a much better story if it weren't related to COVID-19, the parking lot was used as a drive-through testing facility in 2020. Here's a brief history of Jackson's medical building that won't give up.

Jackson's Healthy Health Care Competition

110 N Elm Avenue has been different things to different generations. Growing up in Jackson County, it was Doctors Hospital to me. However, when built in 1943, it was first known as the Jackson Osteopathic Hospital. Ostepaths, medical practitioners who prefer to treat medical issues with joint, bone, and muscle manipulation, staffed the hospital, which was run by a non-profit board for over forty years.

As someone born at what I grew up calling Foote Hospital, I can tell you that in my lifetime, there has been one dominant name in Jackson healthcare—well, one dominant institution. The name has changed since I've been around, from Foote Hospital to Allegiance Health, a brief association with U of M Health, Henry Ford - Allegiance Health, to Henry Ford Jackson Hospital as it's known today. The medical institutions' dominance wasn't due to a lack of competition, and I remember when that plucky osteopathic hospital on Elm Ave changed its lineup and strategy.

Doctors Hospital Takes Aim at Foote

It wouldn't be until 1988 that physicians were added to the Jackson Osteopathic Hospital staff, and the name evolved into Doctors Hospital, who, as former Jackson Citizen Patriot writer Brad Flory bluntly put it, "openly competed with Foote, sometimes with high intensity." How'd that go?

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Well, Doctors would later sell to Borgess, who failed to compete with Foote/Allegiance, so they bailed in the late 90s. In 2003, Carelink of Jackson, a long-term care facility, would take over, only to have the building eventually purchased by Allegiance Health (formerly Foote Health System) in 2010. Allegiance Health became the sole owner and used much of the property until about 5 years ago, when they moved out, leaving it vacant until Michigan Psychological Care recently purchased the building.

So, the next time you're at the Elm Avenue Dairy Queen or the Jackson Candy and Fudge Factory and someone says, "I wonder what they're doing with that building now?" You'll have another name to add to the growing list of tenants at 112 N Elm Avenue in Jackson, the medical building that keeps prolonging its life.