Interstate 71 drivers to see new construction over next year in Cuyahoga County for health facility

CLEVELAND - Drivers on Interstate 71 will see a new facility under construction over the next year. MetroHealth Medical Center broke ground Wednesday afternoon on a new community health center that will serve the Middleburg Heights and Strongsville areas.

MetroHealth Medical Center's, Dr. William Lewis, said they started planning this expansion about five years ago."We realized that health care was changing. It was changing in a couple of respects. Number one, we had to deliver high quality care. We knew we had to do that. We knew we had to do it efficiently. We could not sacrifice quality or finances, but we knew we had to deliver efficient care and the way to do that is in the community."

Community is the key to this whole four building expansion. The entire project is expected to be completed by 2020, but the first building in Middleburg Heights will be ready for patients by 2013. 

"We're going to bring health care to the people. we're going to bring it to where you live in Cuyahoga County and that's the future of health care.", said Dr. Lewis.  

Today's ground-breaking was a milestone for MetroHealth Medical Center, which plans to use the Middleburg center as a model for three additional community centers throughout Cuyahoga County.

MetroHealth Medical Center management planned the building expansion for the past five years. Leaders decided MetroHealth needed facilities outside of their Main Campus to serve the public.

The first new location will replace MetroHealth's busy health and smaller center in nearby Strongsville, where increased patient demand has required expansion of services, according to MetroHealth Medical Center  officials.

The new center will feature urgent care, specialty services such as cardiology, neurology, orthopedics, obstetrics and gynecology. The building itself will feature a state-of-the-art design, open gathering places and meeting spaces for the community to use.

Construction is expected to take up to 16 months on the first building, at a cost of $23 million. The project is partly funded through Build America Bonds, a taxable municipal bond program

You can monitor the progress at: MetroHealth.org/Middleburg .