By Tim Bonfield
The Cincinnati Enquirer

It employs more people here than Kroger or Procter & Gamble and has created more than 4,700 new jobs since 1997.

Its workers spend more than $529 million at stores, restaurants and entertainment venues.

People who travel here to visit it bring more than $250 million a year to town.

And even though it is a collection of nonprofit organizations, it generates more than $106 million a year in state and local taxes.

"It" is the University of Cincinnati Medical Center - which reported Thursday that several years of fast-paced growth have made the Corryville-based center the biggest employment complex in town.

Its overall economic impact: a massive $3.59 billion in 2002 - up 46 percent since 1997. And the 4,700 new jobs created during those years exceed any other employer, according to economic experts.

"Clearly, we are an institution on the move," said Dr. Jane Henney, UC's senior vice president and provost for health affairs.

The employment figures and $3.59 billion economic impact reflects the medical center's affiliated organizations, including University Hospital; Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center; the new Genome Research Institute in Reading; the UC Physicians doctor group; the UC colleges of Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy and Allied Health; plus the Hoxworth Blood Center.

The economic impact includes more than $158 million in research grants from the National Institutes of Health. And it includes $75 million a year spent by students, plus $700 million spent on goods, services and building projects.

Increasingly, business leaders are recognizing the economic power that exists at the UC Medical Center - and some say it could grow.

"It's my opinion that the economic impact of health care, health research and biotech activities have not been fully appreciated by the community," said UC economist George Vredeveld. "I can't think of any other organization that has added nearly 5,000 jobs ... in the past five years."

The growth is even more impressive considering that many other employers have been cutting jobs or holding flat, Vredeveld said.

The medical center said it now employs 16,268, a number that includes medical personnel who teach or have crossover employment at UC. By contrast, the next two top area employers, Procter & Gamble and Kroger, each employ about 13,000.

UC Medical Center's figures spent directly on jobs and purchasing rise to nearly $4 billion by calculating a multiplier effect. Indirect job figures reflect the result of medical center employees spending their paychecks, of contractors paying their people, and so on.

The economic impact study was conducted by Tripp Umbach and Associates of Pittsburgh. The consultant does similar reports for medical centers in Columbus and Cleveland.

Tony Dennis, president of Omeris, a statewide biotech development group, said the biggest benefits from the UC Medical Center's growth are yet to come.

The center's 28 percent growth last year in federal research funding will lead to new discoveries, then patents, then spin-off companies and even more job growth.

"This report really reflects only the front end of the pipeline in developing new technology," he said.

E-mail tbonfield@enquirer.com