Leone & Keeble Inc., of Spokane, has been awarded a $1.5 million contract to build a new branch clinic in Deer Park for the Community Health Association of Spokane, or CHAS. The new clinic will be the nonprofit health-care providers fifth in the Spokane area.


Work on the two-story, 9,400-square-foot building was scheduled to begin this week, says Aaron Wilson, CHASs deputy director. He anticipates that CHAS will begin moving into the building by Nov. 30, and that the clinic will open by the end of the year.


The new facility will be built at 401 S. Main, in Deer Park, which is about 15 miles north of Spokane.


The first floor of the new building will house the CHAS clinics medical and pharmaceutical services, and the second floor will house its dental services, says Wilson.


He says the 10-year-old nonprofit decided to open a clinic in Deer Park because of the significant number of people coming from those ZIP codes to our headquarters on North Maple.


In addition to that North Side clinic, located at 3919 N. Maple, CHAS operates locations at 1001 W. Second, downtown, and 4001 N. Cook, in Spokane, and 9227 E. Main, in Spokane Valley.


The organization currently employs about 220 people, Wilson says. The new Deer Park clinic will have about 20 full-time equivalent employees after its first year of operation, including a mixture of transferring workers from other clinics and newly hired employees, he says. All administrative services for the agency will remain at its headquarters at its Maple Street clinic.


The project was designed by Northwest Architectural Co., of Spokane.