Beverly Hospital on Wednesday will open a $30 million, outpatient-care center in Danvers, a key market where competition looms from rival North Shore Medical Center.
The Salem-based medical center has teamed up with Massachusetts General Hospital on a new $144 million outpatient center-medical office building due to open in 2009 on Endicott Street in Danvers.
But Beverly Hospital wasn't about to be upstaged in the town where it has dominated since buying the former town-owned Hunt Hospital in 1990.
"We have always served the Town of Danvers," said Stephen Laverty, chief executive officer of Northeast Health Systems, parent of Beverly Hospital. "This is a legacy for us. Our physicians, and our nurses, have been taking care of people in Danvers and the surrounding communities for a long time."
The new Beverly Hospital at Danvers Medical and Day Surgery Center, on a portion of the former Danvers State Hospital off routes 1 and 62, should allow the hospital to increase its market share in Boxford, Middleton, Topsfield, and other communities, Laverty said.
"The location is great," Laverty said in an interview. "It's going to be much more convenient for people . . . from surrounding communities to reach us, without adding [traffic] in Danvers."
The 99,000-square-foot center will offer day surgery, pediatric and cardiac care, breast health, and other services. Most of the services were offered at the former Hunt Center on Lindall Street, which the hospital plans to sell.
The new three-story center was designed to be patient-friendly. "It was designed for the convenience of the consumer," Laverty said. "Even the location was chosen to provide easy access for them."
A Community Open House will be held from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday. New technologies, such as digital mammography and CT scanners, will be available. The Lifestyle Management Institute will help consumers to cope with chronic illnesses, such as diabetes or heart disease.
"The future of healthcare . . . is integrating the consumers' lifestyle with their healthcare professionals," Laverty said. "The way that we built this facility will allow the consumer to get in there, access imaging or [medical procedures], and also have the opportunity to manage their lifestyle."
If a settlement agreement is not reached, then a hearing could be held before an administrative law judge, an agency spokesman said.
The company allegedly failed to follow safety standards while installing a water line at a housing development at 400 Revere Beach Boulevard last June, the agency said. Workers were found to be in a 6-foot-2-inch-deep, straight-walled trench in sandy soil without any protection from its walls, the agency reported.
Federal safety standards require companies to shore up walls to protect employees working in excavations 5 feet or deeper from a possible cave-in. "Employees should not have been working in a trench in this condition," Brenda Gordon, the area director for OSHA, stated in a release. "While . . . no collapse occurred, the absence of an injury or a fatality does not reduce the hazard that existed."
The company was fined $49,000 for the lack of cave-in protection, and $3,000 for storing piles of excavated materials at the edge of the trench, where they could fall on employees.
John D'Allesandro, the company owner, declined to comment.
Eight homes in East Gloucester will be decorated and open to the public from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. The cost is $25 in advance, and $30 on the day of the tour. There are 400 tickets available.
The O'Connor scholarship, named for the chamber's first woman president, helps to retrain women for the workforce. "We put the ladder down to give somebody a leg up," said Judy Caulkett, the chamber's program manager. "We're a group of women helping women."
Kathy McCabe can be reached at kmccabe@globe.com.
