Fall River, Ma – This summer marked a big move for HealthFirst Family Care Center, as it relocated down the street to a new 78,000 square foot community health center designed by Steffian Bradley Architects. HealthFirst’s new home in Fall River opened on July 3.
Built to meet the expanding healthcare needs of the Southcoast region, the new facility allows HealthFirst to consolidate and expand their services in a modern setting that meets current healthcare standards. The new facility consists of 36,000 square feet of medical and dental service space. It will also be the new home to the Fall River WIC Program, a health and nutrition program for women, infants and children. HealthFirst is leasing the remaining space to tenants who provide specialty health services like cardiology, podiatry, ophthalmology, X-ray, as well as an expanded laboratory and pharmacy. The goal of this project was to create a convenient one- stop healing environment for the Greater Fall River community. HealthFirst expects to see an additional 6,000 patients per year at their new location, for a total of more than 17,000 visits.
The design of the new location creates an open spacious feeling by bringing natural light and landscaping into the building. The exterior of the building was renovated to create a fresh new image for HealthFirst, and offers improved patient access and expanded parking opportunities. HealthFirst Family Care Center was designed and built as an environmentally friendly and energy efficient facility.
The team behind the HealthFirst project included Columbia Construction as construction manager, Skanska USA as project manager, Thompson Consultants as the MEP engineer, and Goldstein-Milano as the structural engineer. This project, which included the complete renovation of a former Bradlees department store most recently used as a textile manufacturing facility, was been made possible by an $11.5M grant from the Facility Investment Program under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009