In a transaction valued at $350 million, Baton Rouge-based nonprofit Provident Resources Group is acquiring the Georgia Proton Treatment Center in Atlanta and providing additional funding to complete GPTC’s unfinished cancer treatment center.
The 107,000-square-foot, $200 million partially-constructed center, located about a block away from Emory University’s midtown hospital, will be operated as the Emory Proton Therapy Center, a medical facility that will use proton-beam therapy to treat cancer.
Provident Resources Group Chairman and CEO Steve Hicks says the deal is expected to close around April 1. The financing, Hicks says, will be provided by New York-based Citigroup Global Markets.
Provident received initial approval from Invest Atlanta, that city’s economic development agency, for the issuance of up to $400 million tax-exempt bonds on Monday. Hicks calls Monday’s action a “major milestone” in the company’s efforts, adding his goal is to bring proton-beam cancer therapy to greater Baton Rouge, south Louisiana and beyond. Final approval of the bond deal could come in February.
Hicks says he was introduced to the proton-beam therapy and technology in 2006 when Provident was asked to participate in a proposed project in Cleveland that involved the Cleveland Clinic and several other health care providers in the area.
“As I have learned more about proton therapy I have marveled at the technology, its complexity and how it is applicable to treating cancer in children as well as large mass cancer tumors in adults, including prostate cancer and breast cancer, especially left breast cancer,” Hicks says.
Baton Rouge and Louisiana deserves access to the cutting edge technology, Hicks says.
The Atlanta project will require an investment in excess of $300 million from Provident. However, Hicks says Provident anticipates a similar, smaller project to serve greater Baton Rouge and south Louisiana could cost roughly $100 million.
Provident attempted in 2009 to bring proton-beam therapy to Baton Rouge, with the intention of operating it through LSU and other established local health care providers, Hicks says, adding the nonprofit experienced opposition from some in the community.
Provident is taking on oversight of Atlanta’s stalled project after the original developer—California-based Advanced Particle Therapy—fell behind due to financing issues, Hicks says. The project, which Atlanta officials say could advance the city’s medical tourism, broke ground about three years ago and was slated for completion this fall. Pending financing approval, the project could restart next spring or early summer.
Advanced Particle Therapy is reportedly no longer involved in the project. Investors, instead, struck an agreement with Provident to take over and eventually buy out the remaining interest of GPTC, the operating entity behind the project.
“Our project in Atlanta is the first of four such projects we are actively pursuing and developing around the U.S. that include projects in the northeast, one in the upper Midwest and one on the West Coast, all involving major academic health institutions,” Hisck says.
—Alexandria Burris
