Banner Health to relocate HQ to midtown Phoenix

• Banner Health plans to relocate its headquarters to midtown Phoenix.
• The headquarters would employ 800 and could grow to 1%2C400 in five years.
• Banner now employs about 600 at its Phoenix headquarters and 1%2C200 at its Mesa offices.

Banner Health, which recently completed a $1 billion-plus purchase of the University of Arizona Health Network, plans to relocate its headquarters to midtown Phoenix.

Banner officials are in the final stages of negotiating a lease for a large office space at the northeast corner of Central Avenue and Thomas Road. The Phoenix-based health system would relocate 800 employees to midtown Phoenix this year. The new headquarters would draw employees mainly from Banner's existing headquarters, near 12th Street and McDowell Road, and a corporate office in Mesa.

Banner officials said the move is necessary to accommodate its post-merger need for both office and clinical space. Banner employs 38,500 workers in Arizona, making it the state's largest private employer, according to the upcoming Arizona Republic 100 annual ranking of private employers.

"We are bursting at the seams right now," Kip Edwards, Banner's vice president of development, said of the existing 150,000-square-foot headquarters building.

Banner plans to lease 220,000 square feet at the Phoenix Plaza, which consists of two 20-floor towers with 850,000 square feet. The health system could take another 100,000 square feet so it could expand to a 1,400-employee headquarters within five years, officials said.

Banner now employs about 600 at its Phoenix headquarters and 1,200 at its Mesa administrative offices.

Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton touted Banner's move Wednesday during his State of the City speech, which highlighted efforts to revitalize midtown Phoenix.

Edwards said the midtown Phoenix location is ideal because its central location and Valley Metro light rail make it easy to access for Banner employees scattered across metro Phoenix.

Banner's new headquarters would be three blocks east of St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center, the Arizona flagship of Dignity Health. Dignity is the second-largest hospital system in metro Phoenix behind Banner.

Edwards said employees could relocate to the new headquarters before the end of this year, possibly late summer. After the new headquarters is established, Banner would convert the current headquarters to an academic medical unit with clinical space and doctors' offices. The current headquarters is next to Banner Good Samaritan Hospital, which was renamed Banner-University Medical Center Phoenix after the University of Arizona Health Network merger.