Coming soon to Danvers: Medical Center North

With North Shore Medical Center and Northeast Health System each building new outpatient care centers in Danvers, the town is becoming "the medical center point of the North Shore," said Town Manager Wayne Marquis.

"It's good news," said Marquis. "There is an increased need for health services and high quality services outside of Boston. It's what people want, and this provides alternatives."

Danvers, perched in the middle of a network of highways that includes routes 1, 62, and 128, has a lot to offer.

"It's maximum access for the consumer," said Stephen Laverty, president and CEO of Northeast Health System, which is building a $30 million outpatient center on the grounds of the former Danvers State Hospital. It is scheduled to open in the fall.

Construction work on North Shore Medical Center's $104 million ambulatory care and cancer center off Endicott Street is slated to begin this summer, with a 2009 opening anticipated.

"It will be very exciting and rewarding for patients and families," said Robert Norton, president and CEO of North Shore Medical Center. "It will transform the way care is provided to the ex tended North Shore."

The project is being done in collaboration with Massachusetts General Hospital, which the center is associated with through the Partners HealthCare System. The new building will be called the Mass. General/North Shore Center for Outpatient Care.

Norton said the project is a response to a nationwide trend toward outpatient care and its separation from a hospital setting.

"It became clear to us our ability to provide high-level ambulatory care with what we had was limited," Norton said.

He added that the North Shore Medical Center Cancer Center in Peabody "had outgrown its space" and will be moved into the new ambulatory care center.

The project includes a 122,000-square-foot outpatient facility and 80,000-square-foot medical office building. Part of the Osram Sylvania building on the site is being demolished for the new center. Osram will continue operations in the remainder of the building, under a long-term lease with Partners HealthCare.

Norton said dozens of sites in the region were considered before the Danvers location was chosen, in part because of its access.

"We've had a women's health center across the street for a decade, and it's been a site that a lot of people think is convenient and easy to get to," said Pam Lawrence, senior vice president of marketing and strategy at North Shore Medical Center.

The design of the center includes cherry wood and stone exterior panels made from recycled materials, as well as a two-story atrium that takes advantage of natural light and the surrounding landscape.

The three-story center will be built into the natural slope of the land to lower its profile, with only two floors visible from Endicott Street. The cancer center will be on the lower level and have its own entrance. It is also designed so patients receiving chemotherapy can look out at tidal wetlands and the landscape, and enjoy natural light as well.

The new center will include suites for minimally invasive day surgery; advanced diagnostic imaging; and the latest in diagnostic cardiology. It also will have a healing garden, roof deck garden, café, and resource library.

Northeast Health System's new facility will be called Beverly Hospital at Danvers Medical and Day Surgery Center. It will replace the Hunt Center in Danvers, the former Hunt Hospital, which Northeast Health System bought in 1990 and turned into an outpatient center.

"It was a very successful endeavor," Marquis said of the Hunt Center, but the building is older and needed renovations that weren't cost effective. Northeast Health System opted, instead, to build a new center.

The Hunt Center will likely be sold for use as senior citizen housing, Laverty said.

The new 99,000-square-foot, three-level facility will offer a range of expanded outpatient and specialty services, diagnostic and advanced technology services, day surgery, pain management, health and wellness programs, and rehabilitation and sports medicine care.

It will include a Breast Health Center, for diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer, and house the Lifestyle Management Institute, which helps people learn healthier habits.

The new center wraps up a five-year, multimillion dollar program to improve Northeast Health System facilities, which include Beverly Hospital and Addison Gilbert Hospital in Gloucester.

While the hospital organizations are nonprofit institutions, they pay the town an agreed amount in lieu of taxes, Marquis said, adding those terms are now being finalized.

He added the new centers will also contribute to the area's economy by providing jobs and drawing people to the area.

"Healthcare," he said, "is a business of the future."