Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin health network has pledged $1.65 million to convert a vacant office suite in Menomonee Falls into a dental clinic for low-income adults and children.
The funds will be used to renovate an office suite in the Falls Plaza II building, N81W15062 Appleton Ave., to serve as an additional site of the Waukesha County Community Dental Clinic.
The new clinic will have six chairs and is expected to serve about 3,500 people annually, doubling the dental clinic’s current capacity at its location on Barstow Street in Waukesha.
“The clinic provides more than 900 appointments a month to low income individuals, and we see the need to expand our footprint every single day,” said Renee Ramirez, executive director of Waukesha County Community Dental Clinic. “Having a clinic in another location will make a tremendous difference.”
The clinic is expected to open in the spring of 2018.
“Our decision to support a community dental clinic was data-driven, based on gaps identified in a community health needs assessment,” said Cathy Jacobson, Froedtert’s president and chief executive officer. “It also reflects our belief in making sustainable community investments that will truly improve people’s lives over the long term.”
Waukesha County Community Dental Clinic will lease the space in the building.
The pledge is part of the Froedtert & the MCW health network’s announcement in 2015 that it would invest $15 million in areas of need in southeastern Wisconsin.
At that time, the health network said it would designate $12 million to build a new health care clinic on Milwaukee’s near south side in partnership with Sixteenth Street Community Health Centers. A site for the new health center has not yet been determined.
The remaining $3 million was earmarked for distribution to high-need areas in Washington and Waukesha counties.
