$3 million medical office planned for W.S.

By Angelica Rodriguez and Brandon Waz
Bengal News West reporters

            A new medical facility on the West Side is set for construction in mid-April, provided that tax credit approval will be gained toward the end of this month.

            The Greater Buffalo United Accountable Healthcare Network (GBUAHN), a free service through Medicaid located at 393 Delaware Ave., is investing $3 million in the facility, which will be built on a vacant lot on 7th Street, between Jersey and Pennsylvania streets. It will be placed just behind the Urban Family Practice on Niagara Street.

            The building will help expand GBUAHN’s primary care functions and provide a central location for the eight-practice collaborative. A 28,500-square-foot building, it will contain  offices for primary care, a behavioral wellness center, a nutrition and diabetes treatment center and a conference center. It already provides care for 1,500 Medicaid patients in the health home program and hopes to attract more from other parts of the city.

          

Dr. Raul Vazquez, on the 7th Street medical facility:

             Dr. Raul Vazquez,  based at Urban Family Practice and president-CEO of GBUAHN, said that the collective is moving forward with full support from the community at this point despite some misgivings.

            “There was a little misunderstanding in the beginning, because they thought we were going to have  a detox program at the facility, and that’s not what we do here at GBUAHN,” he said. “(We want to) expand primary and behavioral care, so once they found that out, they were all in agreement.”

            With that issue resolved, the facility just has to clear one more hurdle in the Erie County Industrial Development Agency, which GBUAHN is depending on for tax credits. Dr. Vazquez said the project will move forward if the ECIDA approves tax credits at its meeting this month.

            The facility will provide accessible health care for everyone in the vicinity while also creating job opportunities for those living on the West Side. Dr. Vazquez said the project will likely create over the originally projected 75-100 jobs, and, noting the area’s diversity, added that one of the collective’s goals is to engage  "people who look like the community."

            “In our offices, we have people from Somalia, Arabs, Puerto Ricans, African Americans… we want to serve all of that community,” he said.

            GBUAHN office manager Jillian Deuble stressed that above all, the new building would facilitate more of a community effort and that the West Side is the perfect location.

            “It’s so close to where our office already is, but that is the community where it is hard to get around,” she said. “A lot of people there do take the bus, and there is very limited opportunity – if there is one, it’s not a very sustainable opportunity.”

            Mayor Byron Brown was on hand at a recent announcement GBUAHN's partnership with Rite Aid, called Rite Aid Health Alliance. The partnership links local physicians to Rite Aid professionals in working with patients various health conditions to set goals and improve self-management abilities. Buffalo is the third market to engage in the Health Alliance, and there are 10 stores within the city limits. Three of them – Niagara Street, West Ferry Street and Connecticut Street – are on the West Side. 

            Brown welcomed the idea of economic development and expansion in the city, as well as expanding much-needed health care to residents who cannot always access it.

            “I think it’s also important that medical practices located in the city of Buffalo grow and expand to provide more and new and better health care services to the residents of this community,” he said.

            “The physicians at GBUAHN have been doing that for a long time, they know how to do it well, and this unique partnership of physicians in an integrated health facility on the West Side of Buffalo is something that I think is very much needed.”