Byline: Christine Laue
Jun. 19--A three-story building with physician offices and a diagnostic imaging center will expand a Methodist Health System campus in west Omaha.
Methodist Hospital is partnering with NP Dodge to build the 63,000-square-foot West Dodge Medical Center, which will sit immediately west of Methodist Health West at 162nd Street and West Dodge Road.
Health West houses an ambulatory surgery center, an imaging center and physician offices.
West Dodge Medical Center will feature high-end imaging technology, including MRI, or magnetic resonance imaging, and a 64-slice CT scanner that can do cardiac imaging and virtual colonoscopy.
The diagnostic center will be on the first floor. The two upper floors will be physician offices. Physicians can invest in the development.
Steve Goeser, Methodist's executive vice president and chief operating officer, said the hospital was building the facility because physicians affiliated with or practicing at Methodist had expressed the need for more medical office space.
Methodist also was looking to create an area for physicians along the West Dodge corridor.
Besides Health West, Methodist operates a hospital near 84th Street and West Dodge Road and will start construction this fall on a women's hospital at 192nd Street and West Dodge Road.
'It offers space for physicians that would be centrally located between two of our campuses and on a third,' Goeser said of the new medical center.
Construction on the $12 million to $13 million building started in May and is expected to be completed in summer 2008, he said.
Goeser said Methodist eyed the 162nd and West Dodge property for the women's hospital but decided the 192nd Street parcel better suited the hospital.
Methodist already owned the 162nd and West Dodge property and was holding it for future development when physicians expressed the need for offices, he said.
'We had the available ground and wanted to create a partnership arrangement for physicians to own part of the building,' he said. 'We don't have any (plans) currently for the rest of that ground around Health West, although if the need arises, we certainly have it there to develop.'
Tom Failla, vice president of NAI NP Dodge, said the Health West development shows the demand for medical services in west Omaha.
The physicians' offices will be some of the farthest west in Omaha, said NAI NP Dodge associate Jeremy Fink.
'You look at the demographics and the traffic flow, it makes sense you're right on Dodge,' Fink said. 'The doctors are just getting closer to their patients.'
To see more of the Omaha World-Herald, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.omaha.com.
Copyright (c) 2007, Omaha World-Herald, Neb.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
