WEST CHESTER TWP. — By this time next year, a new health facility will open as part of an ambitious medical campus designed to expand with this booming northern Cincinnati suburb.

        Early in 2001, officials from UC Physicians plan to hand over a $4.9 million check to West Chester Township officials as part of the purchase of the 45-acre McGinnis Park near Cox and Tylersville roads.

        Construction on the UC Physicians' “Campus North Project'' will start in the spring, the first of a series of state-of-the-art medical facilities designed to serve the growing area along the Interstate 75 corridor between Cincinnati and Dayton.

        “We are extremely hot about this community. We believe West Chester, and Butler County, will become the real center of the wheel as this area evolves,” said John Gillespie, director of marketing and development for UC Physicians, which is associated with University Hospital.

        Though its flagship facility is at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, with a smaller office in Montgomery, UC Physicians wants to establish a large medical campus in Butler County's fastest-growing township.

        “We think it's a great location. This is our attempt to place a foothold in what we believe is a developing metroplex between Cincinnati and Dayton,” said Mr. Gillespie.

        For Butler and Warren County residents, the medical campus will mean “access to specialty care provided by physicians based at the current UC Medical Center” as well as doctors leasing space in the building, he said.

        The physicians group also is negotiating to purchase a 30-acre lot next to the McGinnis Park site for its planned campus.

        Along with the medical office building, the physicians group plans to build a diagnostic facility.

        And by mid-2002 the campus could also include a free-standing emergency department and by 2003 an ambulatory surgery center — which could include a helipad for emergency flights and possibly an extended-care facility.

        UC Physicians plans to explore possible partnerships with Butler County health-care providers, he said.

        With the addition nearby of the 330-acre Voice of America Park — a gift from the federal government — and the recent purchase of a 151-acre park off Beckett Road in western West Chester Township, township officials said earlier this yea they were willing to part with McGinnis Park.

        Melissa Koehler, economic development director for the township, said she understands why the community was targeted for the new medical campus.

        “West Chester is ideally situated to become an epicenter for medical services to serve residents and businesses in northern Cincinnati and southern Dayton,” said Ms. Koehler.

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