Bullhook Community Health Center expanding facilities

Bullhook Community Health Center is preparing for phase one of its plans to expand its facility, with work on abating, and eventually, tearing down nearby uninhabitable properties to begin next week.

Bullhook Community Health Center CEO Kyndra Hall said the clinic has been planning to expand for more than two years, making sure all the proper studies were done and regulations followed so they can begin work clearing out the nearby properties, making way for an expanded facility, a parking garage for their mobile unit and new parking lots.

"It's been a long time coming, and we're excited," Hall said.

She said health care facilities are required to provide a minimum amount of parking per provider at the clinic and they need more, so this will allow them to expand their offerings to local patients.

She said the first parking lot should be complete next year, with another coming in 2025, and their building expansion should hopefully be complete within three, maybe two years.

Hall said they removed some trees in the area that had become sickly as well and they will plant new trees in their place as soon as they can.

As for the facility expansion, she said, the new addition will allow their billing department, which is in another building to reunite with the rest of the staff, and create space for new provider rooms as well.

She said this expansion will hopefully pave the way for more services they can provide to the local community and will allow them to work more efficiently.

Bear Paw Development Corp. Director of Community Planning and Brownfields Sara Strissel, who has helped them set up the lead paint and asbestos abatement of the properties that will be torn down, said there shouldn't be any interference with nearby roads as the properties are abated, though the work being done will be quite visible.

Strissel said the first teardowns should begin next month, and those may be a bit more disruptive, but it shouldn't be too intrusive.

She said the properties being taken down are all uninhabitable and a lot of them were in such a state of disrepair and so poisoned with lead paint and asbestos that making them habitable again would have been effectively impossible anyway.

She said many of these properties were rundown eyesores and health hazards, so it's nice to be able to finally address them.

Strissel, who was a care manager at Bullhook Community Health Center before taking a job at Bear Paw Development, said the clinic is a vital service, especially to local underserved populations, so this expansion will benefit everyone.

"The resources Bullhook has are invaluable to the community," she said.

She said she doesn't think the clinic was built anticipating the last few years of its rapid growth, and, speaking from her own experience, it can get pretty crowded, so having more space will definitely help them operate better.

However, Strissel said, abating properties for things like lead paint and asbestos is neither cheap nor quick, and she's glad Bear Paw's Brownfields Program was able to help.

She said building standards before the 1980s were much looser and there are still plenty of buildings like these that are completely contaminated with dangerous materials, and this program can help address them.

She said if people have questions about the program they can get in touch with her at Bear Paw Development.