Platte Valley expands into Thornton

With an eye towards residential growth

Amber Creek clinic opens on 136th and Quebec

BY SCOTT TAYLOR STAYLOR@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

With a new grocery store nearby and new housing developments in the ground nearby or in the works, o cials at Platte Valley Medical Center said the neighborhood around 136th and Quebec needed them.

“My o ce is next to a King Soopers ,” said Dr. Brian Leonard, medical director for Intermountain Health’s Front Range clinics. He currently practices at the company’s Quail Creek o ce at 136th and Zuni in Broom eld.

“What I learned is the tremendous amount of research that SCL and Intermountain Health do, and knowing where people are, where their communities are and where people live.” e facility is scheduled to open in November. e new medical center will o er space for six primary care doctors and two ob/gyns and their support sta as well as room for regularly visiting specialists, something Awtrey called “Hotelling for specialists”.

O cials from Platte Valley Medical Center and its parents Intermountain Health launched the construction of the newest medical practice, Amber Creek June 6.

“I can tell you we have room for and p” Intermountain Health Vice President Christopher Awtrey said.

“We are talking about orthopedic surgeons and cardiologists and podiatrists,” Awtrey said. “We are going to bring unique care here.” ey scheduled a groundbreaking in February, but Platte Valley Medical Center President Jaime Campbell said the group didn’t do much celebrating that day thanks to freezing temperatures.

Hospital o cials marked the project by hammering ceremonial nails into a beam meant for the building with golden hammers. It was the second celebration of the project the medical group has hosted.

“It was zero degrees with a minus eight wind chill, I believe, and Dr. Awtrey was laughing at me because e medical group does care about the community, she said.

I’d left my gloves in the car,” Campbell said.

“If you’ve lived here for a long time, you know that Platte Valley has been your medical provider for decades,” she said. “And these clinics that Platte Valley is putting in are right where that growth is happening and this clinic is no exception. And so our history of caring for our communities where you live and work is deep. It’s something we are really committed to and it’s not just strategy.”

Booming development e building will be part of the development at 136th and Quebec that includes King Soopers Marketplace that opened this spring. It’s just south of a dentist’s o ce that is also in mid-construction along Quebec and south of the Anythink Library’s planned Nature Library along 136th in ornton’s Aylor Open Space.

But it’s also centered around 20 residential developments in various stages of planning and construction in the area, meaning there is a market for medical care.

“ ere aren’t enough primary care providers to take care of all the