LourdesCare at Cherry Hill, an ambulatory care center, is preparing to open its doors after several months of construction at the prominent site on the corner of Brace Road and Route 70.
Doctor’s offices will be opening on a staggered basis following the March 5 ribbon cutting, with a community open house event currently scheduled for March 23 from noon to 2 p.m.
According to Carol Lynn Daly, director of marketing and media relations for Lourdes Health System, there will be “free screenings, presentations and offerings like free seated chair massage” at the open house.
Lourdes saw the opportunity to develop the vacant property into a new purpose, Daly said.
“It is a central location in the community,” she said.
Services at the facility will include pre and post surgery care, physician offices and lab services, as well as a heart failure center and cardiology services. A full service radiology center will also be on site.
“The point of it is to make it a one stop shop kind of experience,” Daily said. “They’ll all be there. You have one place to go.”
For heart failure patients, there will be a separate drop off closer to the entrance.
The 54,000 square foot building has been in the plans for more than two years, Daly said.
“In addition to the fact that this is a terrific location in the center of a vibrant community, Cherry Hill is the heart of our service area,” said Kim Barnes, vice president for corporate development at Lourdes Health System. “We looked at the communities our hospitals serve, the locations of our physicians practices and our new surgery center (Centennial) in Voorhees and we determined that this Cherry Hill site is right in the center of those geographic areas. We wanted to be as convenient as possible for the people in those communities we serve.”
The location, said Cherry Hill Township Spokeswoman Bridget Palmer, is highly visible and is part of the evolution of the Route 70-Brace Road-Kings Highway corridor.
“It’s a pretty high traffic location,” Palmer said, adding that she did not think the site would add more congestion to the intersection.
The Lourdes site will join the ranks of the new CVS store and work at Ponzio’s Diner in the area.
A July 2012 Sun article reported that the site has also served as a supermarket and department store in the past.
In January, Lourdes staff was on hand to provide services and information at the monthly “Walk with the Mayor” event at the Cherry Hill Mall.
“There’s a lot of positive response,” said Daly, from residents in the Cherry Hill community.
Learn more about Lourdes Health System by visiting www.lourdesnet.org.
