Editor's note: This story was originally written and shared with The Cluster by The Macon Melody. To read the article on The Melody's site, click here.
A vacant patch of land off Riverside Drive and between Spring and Second streets in Macon will be the new site of Mercer's School of Medicine.
Mercer officials, along with representatives from the Macon-Bibb County government, were on hand Friday, Nov. 7 to break ground on the site, which will also house lofts, retail space and a hotel. Bill Underwood, the outgoing president of the university, and Mayor Lester Miller noted the impact of the project as well as its long history.
Underwood said the university has long needed an upgrade to its main medical school campus — located at its Macon campus — and decided downtown would be the place to do it in order to introduce additional economic activity.
“I think it’s going to be magnificent,” he told attendees. “It’s going to sit right over here and provide a beautiful gateway into downtown Macon.”
Underwood announced the move back in February after Mercer purchased the 10 acres of land in late 2024.
The development, which will cost more than $400 million, has garnered support from the Peyton Anderson Foundation, the Knight Foundation and from state coffers. Underwood said the university still needs $10 million more for the medical school project.
Work is expected to start next year and the medical school project is slated to be completed in 2028, a Mercer spokesperson said.
The new medical school will cost around $80 million and clock in at 150,000 square feet. The campus will also include a parking deck, a 20,000-square-foot office building, 9,000 square feet of retail space, a couple hundred hotel rooms and 198 housing units.
Scott Thompson, the founder of Piedmont Construction Group and an independent contractor on the project, said there’s a need for hotel space to accommodate the influx of visitors from the proposed convention center across the road. That space was once home to the Crowne Hotel.
The new riverfront developments will bring a “real vibrancy” to downtown Macon, he added, and will connect with the long-awaited Ocmulgee National Park.
“It’s gonna be between two of the capstone projects of the next decade,” Thompson said of the mixed-use project.
The county is already looking for developers and architects to get going on the hotel and new convention center, Miller said.
The mayor noted public and private investments along this stretch of downtown and in East Macon will total $1 billion.
Miller said visitors will be able to walk from the new medical school site to the convention center to the arena — all with wider sidewalks and added streetlights.
“The area right here is going to be part of the program that’ll have traffic calming measures,” Miller told The Melody. Traffic calming measures include pedestrian safety infrastructure such as speed bumps.
