Article from The News Tribune 7/25/11
Reviving the heart of Hilltop: Health center to break ground
KATHLEEN MERRYMAN; STAFF WRITER
The ailing heart of the Hilltop’s economy is about to get a healthy jolt
Community Health Care will break ground this summer on its $23 million
When the 60 or so construction workers arrive, that stretch of neighborhood will get something it hasn’t had much of for the past few years: consumers.
With the exception of a few destination businesses, there hasn’t been much to consume.
Mr. Mac Ltd., Johnson Candy Co., My Fish House, The Basket Nook, Le Le’s, Pho King and the Save-A-Lot grocery store have survived because of their quality and affordability, not their neighborhood.
Around them, in a wistful effort to draw businesses, artists painted scenes of commerce on boarded-up storefronts. The imaginary Luv-A-Cup cafe, a florist, Italian restaurant and hat shop are scattered among the remains of once-real businesses that have failed or moved.
Sam’s Barber Shop’s relocation is the only good news among them.
Morris McCollum, known as Mr. Mac to generations of stylin’ Tacomans, owned the building where he had his own store along with Sam’s rented space. McCollum sold it to Community Health Care for the new clinic.
There wasn’t much profit to it, he said, but the clinic will bring what the Hilltop business district needs.
“Traffic,” he said.
The builders, project managers and inspectors will need lunch spots, maybe a place to get coffee. One of Mr. Mac’s famous hats, or a pair of his flamboyant shoes, might catch their fancy.
When the
“It’s going to be the best thing that’s happened since Rite-Aid,” McCollum said of the brick drugstore that is now the thriving Save-A-Lot. “It will bring traffic.”
And it will put it in the right place: An attached parking structure will free up street spaces for other shoppers.
McCollum has moved back into what was his original store space at
He appreciates the symmetry of a health clinic reviving economic health in the neighborhood that will use it most.
MultiCare and Franciscan Health Systems also have something to gain. Their hospitals bookend the neighborhood, and they will likely share benefits of $20 million a year.
Nationally, community health clinics save hospitals from $10 billion to $20 billion in unnecessary emergency room visits each year, said Community Health Care’s Justin Morrill. In
That’s a powerful number, and one he’ll use as he leads the effort to raise the remaining $9.5 million for the clinic.
Morrill said about 70 percent of the people who go to emergency departments at about $1,000 a visit could have been treated just as well, and for about $195, at an urgent care or primary care center.
The $23 million project has won a $12 million grant from the national Health Resources and Services Administration and $1.5 million from the state’s capital budget.
In part, that’s because there’s a tight deadline. When federal health care reform goes into effect in 2014, Community Health Care expects to serve 70,000 people, double the number who now depend on it.
It’s a big step, but CHC has a history of growing to meet needs. The volunteers who founded it in 1969 ran two clinics, on the Hilltop and in Salishan. The nonprofit now runs five medical and two dental clinics.
The new Hilltop center will have medical and dental clinics and a pharmacy. It will collaborate with Franciscan to run a three-year residency, graduating six family practice doctors a year.
That’s a bonus, Morrill said, because the federal government estimates a shortage of 16,000 primary care docs.
With luck, those new doctors will give their heart to the Hilltop, choosing to stay and work in a place that’s so good at revival.
Kathleen Merryman: 253-597-8677
kathleen.merryman@thenewstribune.com
blog.thenewstribune.com/street
