By: Pat Kinney
Source: Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier
JANESVILLE | A new medical clinic may be the next step for good things yet to come in Janesville.
Waverly Health Center of Waverly and Lockard Cos. of Cedar Falls will break ground at 8:15 a.m. Monday on a new 3,400 square foot medical clinic, believed to be the first primary care facility of its size in Janesville.
Located next to a new State Bank branch building which opened there in December, the clinic is part of a larger 25-acre site that could be the scene of additional commercial and residential development in Janesville, which skirts the Bremer and Black hawk county lines between Cedar Falls and Waverly on U.S. Highway 218.
“Janesville has been one of the fastest growing communities in Iowa for some time now,” said John Rigler, president and CEO of New Hampton-based State Bank. “We have 23 additional acres available for development. We think, over time, there will be additional residential or commercial interest in that 23 acres,” on Wildcat Way south of the its roundabout intersection with Barrick Road/County Road C-50 west of its interchange with U.S. Highway 218.
The development in Janesville has made the time right for the clinic. “It’s a community within our county and it’s a growing community we feel deserves to have their own clinic,” Waverly Health Center President Jim Atty said. “There are business opportunities, but it’s something we feel is needed in a town we say we serve.
“It’s my belief a firm foundation in primary care is going to be a necessity.” Atty aid. “Health care has been hospital-centered — that we take care of people in a big building in, usually, a bigger city. The industry doesn’t have that same mindset now.”
The trend is to serve people closer to their homes. “It makes better opportunities for success,” he said.
It’s hoped construction can be completed by year’s end, said Dave Wilson, executive vice president with Lockard Development. He said Lockard will own the building and lease it back to the hospital. He said Lockard was pleased the hospital selected it “to support the residents of the community to give them a local option for health care…bringing health care to them rather than going to it.”
Staffing the clinic will be nurse practioners Janel Thompson and Randy Wirtz, individuals with local ties. “They’re going to knock it out o the park,” Atty said. Clinic director will be Diane Kohls.
Rigler’s confident more development is coming.
“We see that whole area between Cedar Falls, Waterloo and Waverly continuing to fill in,” he said. “Twenty years from now Janesville and the rest of that area will look quite different than it does now.”