Ascension Wisconsin officials celebrated the groundbreaking on a new $42 million health center in Mount Pleasant, the first of the health system’s planned investments totaling $100 million in the region over the next few years.
The two-story, 72,000-square-foot medical center will be built northeast of Highway 20 (Washington Avenue) and Renaissance Boulevard in Mount Pleasant, across the street from its existing Ascension All Saints Primary and Specialty Care Clinic.
The 20 employees currently working at that clinic will move to the new building when it is scheduled to open in early 2020, and Ascension plans to add another 100 new full-time and part-time employees at facility.
Bernie Sherry, ministry market executive of Ascension Wisconsin, said the system will be able to better serve area employers with the new facility, which is about three times larger than the current existing clinic. The Ascension Racine Medical Center will include primary, specialty and urgent care, and on-site laboratory and imaging services, rehabilitation, occupational health and an outpatient surgery center.
The site is within five miles of where Foxconn has begun building its planned complex.
“It will allow us to reach out to nearby employers so if they need to access services for employees and associates, they won’t need to always go on a hospital campus,” Sherry said.
Advocate Aurora Health is also planning a $250 million development in Mount Pleasant, which will include a hospital, medical office building and two clinics.
Building more clinic locations is part of Ascension Wisconsin’s growth strategy as it looks to move services off hospital campuses, where care is more costly, to locations that are closer to where their patients live.
Sherry said the system expects to make an announcement in the coming months about more investments in the region.
“As we look across the state, our goal is to expand our ambulatory footprint, so this is one our first projects to kick that off,” Sherry said. “There’s more to come across the region.”
