A medical center planned for Madison Avenue may be a community health-care remedy that comes a few years too late.
At 27,700 square feet, the planned Island Medical Center would be the largest medical facility on Bainbridge. It’s an ambitious project aimed at meeting the service needs and desires of a growing island population that would prefer not to ride a ferry or cross a bridge to see doctors.
But some health-care professionals say the project, which was approved by the city last month and is under development by island-based MRJ Constructors, may have trouble filling its spacious new offices.
“They have a gigantic medical facility planned without a clear cut picture of who will occupy the facility,” said Bainbridge pediatrician Frederick Walters. “There’s a lot of questions about whether it’s needed, given the current health care players on the island.”
Walters was one of several doctors whose interest was piqued when the project was first announced three years ago. He and a handful of other doctors worked for the Virginia Mason Winslow clinic, currently the island’s largest medical facility, but hoped to break away and establish competing facilities elsewhere on the island.
