FastMed Urgent Care clinic coming to Rockingham

City’s Board of Adjustment approves conditional use permit

By Kevin Spradlin
PeeDeePost.com

ROCKINGHAM — Medicine must be big business.

On the heels of the June 2 grand opening on June 2 of the FirstHealth Convenient Care health care facility adjacent to Richmond Memorial Hospital, the Rockingham Board of Adjustment on Tuesday unanimously approved a conditional use permit for a similar clinic less than 1 mile away.

Image courtesy city of Rockingham Pizza Hut is on the right, the blue spot in the middle is the property in question that will be razed, then replaced with new construction. McDonald's is to the left and Lowe's is at the top. At the bottom is East Broad Avenue.

Image courtesy city of Rockingham
Pizza Hut is on the right, the blue spot in the middle is the property in question that will be razed, then replaced with new construction. McDonald’s is to the left and Lowe’s is at the top. At the bottom is East Broad Avenue.

Tri-City Inc., represented by owner by Neil Robinette and leasing manager Joseph Mendola, appeared before Planning Director John Massey and the approving authority seeking the CUP at City Hall on Rockingham Road. The site under the microscope is the location of several banks, situated between McDonald’s and Pizza Hut along East Broad Avenue at Rockingham Road.

Mendola said Tri-City Inc. already has a tenant, Fast Med Urgent Care — with the nearest location in Aberdeen — to occupy the first phase of new construction once the current building is demolished. The second phase of construction, with a date to be determined, does not yet have a tenant.

Tri-City Shopping Center sits within a unified development. Massey explained that “any major modification” to a unified development requires a conditional use permit and, by extension, the public hearing that took place Tuesday. Clerk to the board Carole Frye said the public hearing had been properly advertised and, in compliance with state law, certain affected property owners had been notified of the hearing.

No one other than Massey, Mendola and Robinette addressed the board during the hearing, which lasted only a few minutes. Massey recommended to the board that members approve the CUP as laid out within submitted site plans that addressed landscape, parking and traffic flow issues

Robinette told the board that Tri-City was working to “make it a real quality development” in at a location that’s been nothing but an eyesore in recent years.

Joseph Mendola

Joseph Mendola

“I think this would be a good start to improving the conditions to this area,” Robinette said.

Robinette said an ideal tenant for the second phase of the project could include a convenience retail location, such as a coffee shop.

The project, said Mendola, “is pretty much a straightforward proposal int hat we’re taking down an obsolete building, which that bank is … we’re going to demolish that building and have a tenant that the community really needs.”

Mendola said FastMed Urgent Care offers “basically health care at a discount price.”

Board member David Wood acknowledged the site, including neglected landscape, “needs to be cleaned up.”

“All the questions that the city had outlined … for us to consider had been addressed before we got here,” Wood said. “I think it’ll be a welcome addition.”

Board alternate Caroline Goodwin agreed.

“I think the application meets the four requirements that we must agree to or be able to answer as ‘yes’ with no doubt,” she said.

Kevin Spradlin | PeeDeePost.com The building that housed several former banks at Tri-City Plaza is to be demolished and replaced with a ne building that will house a FastMed Urgent Care clinic.

Kevin Spradlin | PeeDeePost.com
The building that housed several former banks at Tri-City Plaza is to be demolished and replaced with a ne building that will house a FastMed Urgent Care clinic.

Those four requirements include:
1. That the application is complete; and if the development is completed as proposed in the application, it will comply with all applicable conditions, standards and regulations set forth in the Unified Development Ordinance;
2. The use will not materially endanger the public health or safety if located where proposed and developed according to the plans submitted;
3. The use will not substantially injure the value of adjacent or abutting properties;
4. The location and character of the use, if developed according to the plans submitted and approved, will be in harmony with the area in which it is to be located and in general conformity with the plan of development for the city of Rockingham and its extraterritorial jurisdiction.

 

 

 

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  • Patricia Davis

    Glad to see that “fresh eyes” will be coming to provide additional urgent care to the area. Hopefully, the two facilities will decrease the misuse of local emergency rooms. Urgent care is a growing need that will now, thankfully, be addressed.

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