New ORMC medical office

A new not-so-little bundle of joy arrived Tuesday evening in Odessa.

They named it The Dr. Albert B. Finch Medical Office Building, a 40,000-square-foot facility geared to house as many as 10 different medical suites for doctors working with the Odessa Regional Medical Center, to which the new building is directly attached.

After two years of construction and planning, the $5 million building - which is not owned by ORMC, but by DASCO, a West Palm Beach, Fla., medical facility company that leases the adjacent land from ORMC - hosted an open house to showcase its current inhabitants, three doctors with the Regional Perinatal Center and a urologist, Dr. John Saba.

"I've only been here 10 days," Saba said, "but I'm very pleased."

Depending on the needs of each additional renter, ORMC spokeswoman Jacqui Gore said, the hospital could eventually hold about 12 or 13 doctors, who sign their contracts with DASCO, which has it's own side contracts with ORMC.

Gore said the goal of the building was sheer convenience, both for doctors and patients.

"The benefit to them is the convenience," Gore said. "So if their patents need diagnostics or to be admitted to the hospital, they can just send them down the hall. It's a convenience factor for the doctors and the patients."

The building connects directly to ORMC's west side.

"The patients don't have to go outside," said Dr. Jorge Blanco with the perinatal center. "I don't have to go out in the rain and run around long distances. And it's better for the patients."

On the second floor of the building, doctors and other medical personnel still settling in to their new offices showed guests a tour of the pristine perinatal center, including state-of-the art sonogram machines equipped to treat the center's high-risk pregnancies.

The center also is equipped to assess pre-pregnancy risks such as parental medical history and genetics with cautious parents, said Jamie Chance, the center's genetic counselor - who said she's the only one in a 200-mile radius.

The building's namesake, Dr. Finch, who opened what would eventually become ORMC back in 1975, was in attendance at Tuesday's open house.

He said it was "a great honor" to have the building named after one year ago and he was "very surprised and pleased."

"I'm glad to see the building begin to be occupied," he told nurses and other personnel during the open house. "It's going to run fast now."

The building, however, has yet to reach its full occupancy.

In fact, the building's basic structure has been complete for about nine months, Gore said, but it has taken additional time for DASCO to lease the space to clients.

Then, she said, once doctors sign the lease, they begin working with the architect to custom design their offices to meet their specific needs, which is why it has taken two years since groundbreaking for the building to open.

"We didn't think we would get it totally filled from the beginning," DASCO Managing Director Debra Bielss said, "but we're looking for new recruits."

BY THE NUMBERS

The Dr. Albert B. Finch Medical Office Building

>> Square feet: 40,000.

>> Price: $5 million for the basic structure.

>> Floors: two. 

>> Space for approximately nine suites.

>> Doctor capacity: about 12 or 13.

>> Current doctor occupancy: about four.

>> Owner: DASCO, West Palm Beach, Fla.

>> Location: 420 E. Sixth St.

>> Current facilities: urology, perinatal.