Children’s Wisconsin announced plans today to build a new clinic on Milwaukee's far northwest side.
Slated to be built on a vacant lot at 7201 W. Good Hope Road, the 20,000-square-foot clinic would be nestled in between the Uihlein Soccer Park and a Pick ‘n Save parking lot. The new clinic is expected to replace a smaller existing Children’s Wisconsin clinic located a few blocks away at 7720 Good Hope Road.
Moving the clinic to a larger location will allow Children’s Wisconsin to expand services, according to a Wednesday press release, as well as offer urgent care services for the first time on the city’s northwest side – an area with the second largest pediatric population in the city. The existing clinic is 5,800 square feet.
Children’s Wisconsin is working with
Weas Development, who would build and own the clinic building. Proposals and zoning requests have been submitted to the city of Milwaukee and will need to be approved before the project can move forward. The plan is to break ground on the building in early 2024 and to open mid-year 2025.
“Children’s Wisconsin is committed to improving access and offering services where it can have the most impact,” said
Mike Gutzeit, president of Children’s Wisconsin Primary Care. “We are excited to offer all families expanded hours for urgent care and add imaging services. The new additional space will not only allow us to support more primary care providers, but also include dedicated space for mental and behavioral health services as part of the Good Hope Pediatrics team.”
Planning documents submitted to the city put the construction cost of the project at $6 million.
The existing Good Hope Pediatrics clinic, which has been at its current location since 2008, serves more than 4,000 kids and provides pediatric medical care, and since 2022, behavioral health care.
When the new Good Hope Clinic opens in 2025, Children’s Wisconsin will transfer urgent care services currently offered at Mayfair Clinic, 3040 N. 117th Street in Wauwatosa, to the new clinic. Due to space constraints, the Mayfair location can only support evening and weekend hours, and doesn’t offer imaging service, Children’s Wisconsin noted in its press release.
The new location affords the opportunity to better meet the increasing trend in urgent care visits and respond to community feedback for increasing urgent care services, Children’s added. The new clinic will offer urgent care services from 8:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on the weekend.
During a discussion of the project at the city’s Granville Advisory Committee on Wednesday morning, one committee member who is a parent of young children, expressed how happy she was that Children’s is opening an urgent care clinic in the area. She noted that her daughter struggles with asthma and that she often has to drive her to urgent care clinics in Mequon and Brookfield during flareups.
Having a closer urgent care location will also keep families in the area from having to turn to an emergency room setting for care for more minor illnesses and injuries, the health care provider noted.
The clinic will be dedicated to serving children from birth to 18 years of age, and officials with Children’s Wisconsin expect the clinic to serve around 100 patient families per day and be staffed by roughly 25 people. Pediatricians working at the location will be people of color to help reflect the community being served, which is currently the case at the existing Good Hope clinic.
As part of the project,
Connor Weas, of Weas Development, noted Wednesday that his company will pave and mark more than 200 parking spots for Milwaukee Kickers game parking at Uihlein Soccer Park. Those spaces will be in addition to the roughly 100 spaces dedicated to clinic parking, he said.
While the land where the clinic will be constructed is currently owned by Milwaukee County – and slated to be sold to Weas Development – the gravel and concrete site has been mostly used as overflow parking for soccer games.
