Members of the Lutheran Health Network, Lutheran Medical Group, the Town of Roanoke and Huntington County put metal to sod Monday afternoon as they broke ground on a new $1.2 million, 7,234 square-foot family medicine physician offices.
The new building, is located at 280 Commercial St. in downtown Roanoke, and will replace a much smaller structure about a half-mile away that was built decades ago as a single family home.
The new Lutheran Medical Group facility will be more than 80 percent larger than the existing practice and offer modern accommodations including additional, more convenient parking, six exam rooms, an updated area for lab work and a procedure room. Construction should be completed by early November.
Jeffrey Witt, MD, is LMG's full-time family medicine physician in Roanoke, said he and his staff are looking forward to moving into the new space. Currently he said their office only has 1,200 square feet.
Witt said the former practice had 5,000 charts, but because they had a paper system he is not sure how many of those are still viable patients. He anticipates the practice will expand, with some of his former patients following him from his Huntington practice.
His current staff is made up of a full-time nurse, a part-time medical aid and two receptionists who also work part-time.
“There are only four us there at any one time,” Witt said.
Witt said some of the extra space in the new building would be used for traveling specialists who would down from Fort Wayne for a day to see patients. This might include cardiologists, gastrointestinal specialists or possibly an obstetrician.
Some of the local leaders present included Joe Dorko, chief executive officer who said they are honored to be a part of the Roanoke community.
Mark Wickersham, executive director of Huntington County Economic Development, said this is the third project to come to fruition in the past year and they are anticipating two more in the near future as well.
The new location on Commercial Street is visible from U.S. 24, and more readily accessible from the highway. The developer of the facility is Sperry Van Ness / Parke Group and Lutheran Medical Group is the tenant. The general contractor is Bob Buescher Homes.
Lutheran Medical Group is the largest member of Lutheran Health Physicians, an alliance of Lutheran Health Network owned physician practices that includes St. Joseph Medical Group, Kosciusko Medical Group, Bluffton Physician Services and Dukes Medical Group.
