Hot Property: East Side Family Clinic

Updated: April 13, 2012 - 12:43 PM

West Side Community Health Services has purchased a vacant lot in the St. Paul Port Authority's Beacon Bluff business park and is planning a new, $10 million health clinic on former 3M Corp. industrial land.

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West Side Clinic, Beacon Bluff

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East Side Family Clinic 895 E. 7th St., St. Paul

Type: Medical Size: 34,000 square feet Lot: 2.6 acres Cost: $10 million Developer: West Side Community Health Services

The 2.6-acre parcel is at the northeast corner of E. 7th and Mendota streets. The clinic will be the new home of the nonprofit health care provider's East Side Family Clinic, which currently occupies a 17,000-square-foot space on nearby Arcade Street.

West Side, which operates 17 health and dental-care clinics of various sizes serving low-income patients in Ramsey County, says it will include 24 exam rooms, five behavioral therapy consultation rooms, two advanced medical procedure rooms, a medical lab, X-ray facilities and a large pharmacy.

An extensive dental facility with 20 stations also will be included. West Side CEO Jaeson Fournier says dental service is sorely needed among lower-income residents of St. Paul's East Side.

"It will really be a tremendous expansion as it relates to the dental needs of this community," Fournier said.

Fournier said his nonprofit originally was working with the Port Authority on a parcel along Arcade Street, but later settled on a spot in Beacon Bluff -- a 61-acre redevelopment site that includes what was once 3M's original industrial campus.

"We served 9,000 medical patients in 2011 at the Arcade Street site, with 6,000 of them coming from the immediately adjacent neighborhoods," Fournier said. "When we looked at Beacon Bluff, we saw there was a good bus line along East 7th, and it's also accessible from the north side of Phalen Boulevard" via a bridge on Forest Street.

A patient advisory group also liked the site, he added.

West Side is seeking a conditional use permit for 180 parking stalls at the clinic -- 36 more than what is normally allowed by the city -- which it says are needed partly because its low-income patients spend up to twice as long at its facilities than do users of typical health clinics.

Don Jacobson, a freelance writer based in St. Paul, can be contacted at hotproperty.startribune@gmail.com.