By John Kiesewetter
The Cincinnati Enquirer

WEST CHESTER TWP. - The UC Physicians' University Pointe medical campus continues to grow, with construction to begin in March on the first of three medical office buildings.

The 22,000-square-foot single-story office building will be south of the UC Physicians office that opened last year, and the short-stay surgical center to open in September off Cox Road, just north of the I-75/Tylersville Road exit.

"We hope the offices will open the same time as the hospital," says Jack Goodwin with the Miller-Valentine Group, which is developing the 75-acre medical campus with UC Physicians.

Butler County Commissioners this week approved $16 million in tax-exempt construction bonds for the one-story hospital to serve southeastern Butler County and southwestern Warren County.

The surgical hospital will have four operating rooms and eight overnight beds. It's a partnership of UC Physicians, which has 500 physicians, and the Health Alliance, which operates University, Christ, Jewish, Fort Hamilton-Hughes and St. Luke hospitals.

First to open on the land east of Interstate 75 was the UC Physicians office in September last year. It is on pace for more than 36,000 patient visits this year, up from 25,000 in its first year, says John Gillespie, UC Physicians marketing director.

The campus also includes a helipad and an emergency medical helicopter, and the Precision Radiotherapy Center, with a sophisticated machine that performs single-dose radiation treatment for tumors.

Plans call for two more medical buildings - one that could be started next summer, and another along Cox Road for community physicians to be built after the hospital opens.

"We're a specialty group, by and large, and when the hospital opens we'll want it to be used by community physicians," Gillespie says.

But the complex isn't exclusively for medical use. Huntington Bank and Mitchell's Salon & Day Spa soon will be joined by T.G.I. Friday's, Fifth Third Bank and a Marketplace shopping center anchored by McAlister's Deli.

E-mail jkiesewetter@enquirer.com