HonorHealth Reveals More Details on Proposed Medical Center
HonorHealth aims to build a new medical facility in Anthem, offering a broad array of “care center” services. Services would range from MRIs and CT scans to sports medicine and possibly sleep therapy, as well as outpatient care for immediate, non-emergency situations.
The center would be the third such facility for HonorHealth, which also runs a sleep center in Scottsdale that uses overnight sessions to diagnose and treat sleep disorders.
About three dozen residents attended a community meeting Monday, Nov. 21 in the Civic Building to learn about the proposal. [Initial Announcement Nov. 18, 2016]
The facility, targeted to open in 2018, would likely have a helipad for outbound patients.
“We would really like to have a helicopter pad,” said Nathan Anspach, CEO of the HonorHealth Medical Group. Anspach said the existing HonorHealth center in Anthem sees six to 10 instances a year when a patient at the facility experiences a heart attack or other emergency that requires immediate transport to an emergency center. A helicopter can shave critical moments off that transport time.
Because the new center would not be an emergency facility, inbound patients would not arrive via helicopter nor would inbound emergency vehicles arrive with sirens on, Anspach said.
If approved, the one-story, roughly 27,000-square-foot facility would be constructed on a 4.25-acre lot on Venture Court, just south of the Wood Orthodontics/Sheppard Pediatric Dentistry building. The site is down the block from Enclave at Anthem, an assisted living facility currently under construction.
An additional 15,000-square-foot, two-story office building is being considered for future development on the site. Plans call for about 200 parking spaces.
HonorHealth’s immediate care center on Anthem Way would remain, Anspach told In&Out. But whether the outpatient physical therapy office would be folded into the new facility or remain in its Anthem Way location has not yet been determined.
The new center would be open seven days a week with extended hours, the company said in a letter sent to nearby property owners. It would be staffed by primary care physicians and specialists, and might include overnight beds for care of patients with non-life-threatening conditions, the letter stated.
“It’s not a hospital,” said HonorHealth spokesperson Jeff Holeman. “And it’s more than just a physicians’ office.”
The proposal requires approval by Anthem Community Council and Pulte, as Anthem’s governing documents would require an amendment to allow overnight stays, said council spokesperson Kristi Northcutt. Before acting, council has been seeking resident feedback on the project, “which will factor into their joint decision with Pulte,” Northcutt said.
HonorHealth would also need approval of the Maricopa County Planning and Development Department, and a rezoning of the property from C-O (commercial office) to C-2 (intermediate commercial).
Dr. Wyatt Wood, of Wood Orthodontics, owns the property HonorHealth hopes to purchase. While he has a vested interest in the project’s approval, he said it makes sense for multiple reasons: It would bring jobs to the area and complement nearby health-related businesses. And, given the amount of empty office space in Anthem, the bare ground is unlikely to attract anyone wanting to build offices, Wood said.
