Thirty years ago, Woodbury had a Standard gas station, a PDQ and a pizza restaurant called Ronnally’s. The only stoplights flashed at Valley Creek Road and the overpass above Interstate 494. Now our once-rural suburb is all grown up and branding itself as a medical specialty hub. The year 2014 is one of expansion for three major organizations: HealthEast, Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota and HealthPartners.
Health care is one of the fastest growing job segments in Woodbury, consisting of at least 160 health care businesses, says Janelle Schmitz, assistant community development director for the city of Woodbury. The city is the driving force behind Woodbury’s HealthCore Initiative, a plan to market and brand Woodbury as a health care destination and grow this area for future health care development. “There are so many great heath care providers and businesses in our city,” Schmitz says. “From the small dental practices to Woodwinds Hospital, we want to continue creating this vibrant health care economy we have in Woodbury.”
Schmitz expects Woodbury’s health care footprint to keep growing, especially with these medical expansions. “We are offering Woodbury residents the full package,” she says. “From an economic standpoint, people can live here and work here in these medical professions. And now they can also receive high-quality care.”
Here’s what’s on the drawing board:
HealthEast
Construction will begin this spring on a new HealthEast Woodbury Clinic, located at a new site at Tamarack Road and Woodbury Drive. This clinic, expected to open this fall, will include pediatric and family medicine providers.
Due to projected growth in the Woodbury community, this will be one of two new HealthEast Woodbury Clinic locations opening in the next two years. A second HealthEast Woodbury Clinic will be located on the Woodwinds Health Campus, offering internal medicine and specialty providers. It will be located in the Oak Center building, across the parking lot from the hospital; the expected opening is spring of 2015.
In January 2015, HealthEast Cancer Care will open radiation oncology services in the vacated portion of the HealthEast Woodbury Clinic, the city’s first radiation treatment facility. The cancer care center means patients who often need a daily regimen of radiation won’t have to travel as far for that care.
Throughout these construction and expansion projects, HealthEast continues to keep the culture of Woodbury on the forefront. “The community was very involved in the design of Woodwinds Health Campus back in the late ‘90s,” says Tom Schmitt, senior vice president HealthEast Population Health and Ambulatory Services.
“HealthEast has grown with the community. This expansion project is no different. We’re asking actual patients, ‘What do you want to see in this center or clinic?’”
Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota
Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota has various pediatric clinics dotted across the Twin Cities, including the current Woodwinds Rehab and Specialty Clinics location in Woodwinds Hospital. This clinic is relocating to a new space on Bielenberg Drive in Tamarack Hills, just north of the Sheraton Hotel. In this 20,000-square-foot space, services will include endocrinology and diabetes, occupational therapy, physical therapy and speech language pathology, all of which are currently offered at its Woodwinds location.
“Children’s is always looking for ways to improve and expand care across the Twin Cities,” says Justin Theodotou, public relations coordinator for Children’s. “This gave us an opportunity—by moving to a bigger and better space—to do just that.” Children’s plans to start operating in the new location by fall 2014.
HealthPartners
HealthPartners Clinic in Woodbury has completed a 10,000 square-foot expansion; updates to the rest of the building are underway and should be finished by late summer or early fall. The clinic, HealthPartner’s largest primary care clinic, will offer additional urgent care and OB/GYN services, including more exam rooms which will allow staff to see more patients. “Woodbury has become this mini specialty hub,” says Annelise Searle, communications consultant for HealthPartners. “We hope this new space and new opportunity allows us to continue to grow.”
