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City council OKs medical clinic

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By KATHY STEELE

ksteele@tampatrib.com

Published: October 28, 2009

EAST TAMPA - A $4 million project to build a medical clinic near Middleton High School won initial approval last week from Tampa City Council.

About $1.3 million in costs will be paid with federal stimulus funding, said Charles Bottoms, chief executive officer for Tampa Family Health Centers. The nonprofit operates eight clinics, including an urgent-care facility in a former police substation at the Lee Davis Neighborhood Service Center on 22nd Street.

"It is too small and had nowhere to expand," Bottoms told council members at a public hearing to rezone 11 parcels at the southwest corner of 22nd and Osborne Avenue.

The council will hold a final vote on the project Nov. 5.

The property last year was rezoned to build 31 affordable town homes. But church officials with College Hill Church of God and developers with Poinsettia Development backed away from the project when the real estate market crashed. The Rev. Charles Davis said the church wants to find other land for a housing project.

The church sold its property to the health centers. Some additional parcels, including one home, also were bought, Bottoms said.

The 15,000-square-foot clinic building will have 105 parking spaces. Council's approval allows for removal of three protected trees. A required wall will be built with material that offers protection to several other trees immediately off the site.

Tampa Family Health Centers anticipates a 2010 opening. About 60 percent of the centers' clients are uninsured, Bottoms said.

The agency began in 1984 as a grass-roots mission of medical graduate students to bring health care to the working poor and uninsured.

Reporter Kathy Steele can be reached at (813) 259-7652.

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