Groundbreaking held for Banner Health Center

A dusty plot of land on Porter Road behind Walmart will soon be transformed into a new 40,000-square-foot medical facility.

A crowd of about 250 gathered under a tent this morning as officials broke ground for the Banner Health Center, which has been in the planning stages since 2006.

Along with primary care doctors, the center will provide pediatrics and ancillary services such as X-ray and laboratory services. Banner Health Care is a nonprofit provider with locations throughout the Phoenix metropolitan area.

Long-range plans are to build the center in stages. Eventually, the facility could more than double to nearly 87,000 square feet with an outpatient surgical center if the city’s population grows and there is an increased demand for services, Banner representatives have said.

The first phase should be completed in spring or summer of 2012. “As Maricopa grows, the Banner Health Center will grow with you,” Chief Medical Officer Dr. Bruce Bethancourt said at the ceremony.

Mayor Anthony Smith said health care has always been one of the economic development pillars of the city. He thanked Economic Development Director Danielle Casey for her hard work and persistence with the project.

Referring to the timeline of the project, Smith said, “The turning point came in November 2009 when we moved from ‘if’ into ‘when’ in Maricopa.”

Craig Jensen, who directs Banner’s outpatient health centers, said five years ago Banner was “hunted down” by Casey, but at that time the company did not have Maricopa “on its radar screen.”

As the company took a closer look at the city, an expansion into Maricopa, which is short by 20 primary-care physicians, became a higher priority, he said.

“We looked at Maricopa as a unique opportunity to get a start-up business and grow with the community,” he said.

Jensen was one of four speakers yesterday at a breakfast hosted by the Pinal Partnership, a coalition of community, business and educational and governmental leaders, at Central Arizona College in Coolidge.

Jensen said the Banner Health Center will start with six primary care doctors and quickly go up to eight. Patients also will have local access to specialists such as cardiologists.

He said another benefit of the center is that it will offer extended hours. “People want to see a doctor before work, after work or on the weekend,” he said.

The center will start out with 31 to 36 employees, he said, but could have as many as 110 after it expands. About 200 Maricopans already work for Banner in the Valley, Jensen said, and some of them could end up working at the local facility.

He said Banner had recently set up a Facebook page to announce the Maricopa center. Jensen said the page is getting comments like, “I’m a health-care professional living in Maricopa. When are you going to open so I can have a local job?”