NexCore Group announced today that the final structural steel has been set in place on the 85,500 square foot United Health Services Outpatient Medical Facility in Vestal. The facility is located along the Vestal Parkway retail corridor directly across from Binghamton University, a top-ranked public research university in the SUNY system.
NexCore is providing development and project management services on the $30 million project for its client United Health Services (UHS) — a not-for-profit, 916-bed hospital, and health care system serving the Greater Binghamton region. UHS provides a full range of medical, surgical, rehabilitative and long-term care services from more than 40 locations throughout New York’s Southern Tier.
The three-story facility, which is slated to open 3rd Quarter 2012, will be the first comprehensive, multi-specialty ambulatory care center in Vestal, a medically underserved suburban community near Binghamton. The one-stop-shop facility will house primary care, a walk-in center, X-ray and other imaging services, women’s center, rheumatology, and laboratory and pharmacy services. Building amenities will include a café and fireplace in the main lobby as well as canopy-covered drop-off entries leading to ample surface parking.
The facility will be fully occupied by UHS services and physician practices upon opening, with UHS taking advantage of the new facility to consolidate several of its employed primary care practices.
According to UHS President and CEO Matt Salanger, communities need greater access to convenient, accessible and affordable primary care in light of the aging baby boomer generation, increasing consumer demand for healthcare services, and healthcare reform.
“Over the last several years, UHS has sought to provide residents of the Greater Binghamton area with convenient access to healthcare services wherever they live in Broome, Chenango, Delaware and Tioga counties,” says Mr. Salanger. “The new outpatient facility in Vestal will be one of our most visible and beneficial examples of that commitment. The women’s center, for example, will offer an unprecedented array of services for a building and community of this size.”
Mr. Salanger emphasizes that NexCore played a significant role in helping UHS with site selection analysis and programming coordination to create the optimum patient experience.
“The NexCore team, which included our East Coast office in Bethesda, Md., thoroughly evaluated best practices related to physician practice patterns and patient flow,” says Kim Prentice, Managing Director of Development & Operations at NexCore. “Our team also carefully considered the feedback that UHS received from patient surveys, focus groups, and physicians. As a result, the Vestal facility will incorporate dramatically different and far more efficient layouts than physicians or patients are accustomed to in existing facilities, including centralized registration, shared wait areas and a comprehensive women’s center.”