An influential Kansas City philanthropic group is making a major donation to Kansas University Medical Center, but it comes with a caveat.

The Hall Family Foundation will donate a Johnson County office building to KU Medical Center, if voters in Johnson County approve a tax for a new research triangle anchored by the medical center, KU’s Edwards Campus and a new Kansas State campus in Olathe.

“This will be a very effective leverage point,” KUMC vice chancellor David Adkins said. “It allows the medical center and those who are proponents of the triangle proposal to show there are others who are supportive of this proposal.”

The research triangle sales tax – which Johnson County commissioners must approve before it would head to voters this fall – would generate about $15 million annually, to be spent equally by the three schools. The medical center’s portion initially would help remodel and equip the building being donated by the Hall Family Foundation.

Renovations are expected to cost about $15 million.

“It says to the voters this is a real proposal,” said Bill Hall, president of the foundation. “We have tremendous capability in this community in the drug development field. : The ability to combine clinical trials with drug development capabilities should give us a significant leg up.”

Adkins said cancer clinical research is exactly what would go on in this new building, which is in Fairway. Patients would come to the facility to be evaluated for possible participation in phase one clinical trials, and then either receive treatment there or in their home communities, but supervised by clinicians at the new facility.

The facility also would be a headquarters for the new Midwest Cancer Alliance and the new Heartland Institute for Clinical and Translational Research. Adkins said a facility such as this could make the difference in KU achieving National Cancer Institute designation.

“Our application for NCI designation will be much stronger if we can demonstrate we have this outstanding capacity in translational and clinical research,” Adkins said.

Because of the two headquarters and the patients who would visit the facility, Adkins said the new building could provide a significant amount of economic development for northeast Johnson County.

The Hall Family Foundation’s purchase has not been finalized, but Adkins said it was his understanding that nothing was expected to impede its completion. KU Chancellor Robert Hemenway has a seat on the foundation’s board.