CS Construction personnel “fly in” a truss Monday afternoon at the site of the new NorthShore Medical Group clinic, off State Route 14 in lower White Salmon.
CS Construction personnel “fly in” a truss Monday afternoon at the site of the new NorthShore Medical Group clinic, off State Route 14 in lower White Salmon.
After sitting idle and buried under snow throughout the winter months, activity has resumed again at the site of the new Northshore Medical Group building off State Route 14, east of the Hood River Bridge.
The first part of the new building project, completed last fall, included site and foundation work. With a scheduled hiatus during the winter months, framing began at the beginning of the month, with trusses going up this week. The building is expected to be “dried in” by April and a planned finish/move- in date is October 2017.
According to Northshore Administrator Cindy Robertson, the footprint of the finished building will be approximately 15,631 square feet, although only 11,607 square feet will be used initially. The remaining 4,024 unimproved shell space will be reserved for future expansion. For perspective, the clinic’s current facility is 8,306 square feet.
In addition to more space, there will be more parking – 100 spaces to be exact.
CS Construction, of Bend, Ore., is the general contractor on the project, but whenever possible, local subcontractors are being used. They include Riley’s Ready Mix, Artistic Excavations, Bell Design, James Kacena, Ashley Neff Designs, and Archer Mayo.
With the move to the new facility, the clinic will once again be offering obstetrical services (with patients delivering at Providence Hood River). A new physician – Chardonnay Vance, MD, PhD – is expected to be joining the team at about the same time as the move. Her original training was as a midwife before she attended medical school.
According to Robertson, “When we move to the new building, we will also be expanding our current services to provide basic laboratory testing services in house, as we currently do in our Stevenson clinic.”
The clinic doctors anticipate those will include complete blood count (CBC), comprehensive metabolic panel (CMP), thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) and lipid panel testing.
“We expect these to be at a significantly lower cost than Gorge- area hospitals,” Robertson said. “Samples of tests not available on site will be picked up daily by Legacy Lab Services.”
She added, “Our patients are fortunate to have numerous options for lab testing services in the White Salmon and Hood River area, and it will always remain their choice where to get those services.”
Other new services and specialties which clinic doctors are considering adding include allergy testing, acupuncture, pediatrics, counseling, internal medicine, diabetic education, massage therapy, and audiology.
Clinic hours will remain the same as currently offered – 7 to 7 Monday through Friday, and 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturdays.
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