Ground broken for new cancer center, should be complete by end of year

Alabama Cancer Care’s new cancer treatment center in Gadsden has been fast-tracked for projected completion by the end of the year, officials said on Thursday at a ceremonial groundbreaking for the facility.

Most importantly, the 10,000-square-foot center, which will be built on the site of the old National Guard armory on First Street, will offer options for cancer patients to receive treatment in Gadsden that they might previously have had to travel for.

From an economic standpoint, it involves an investment of roughly $6.5 million by the Tuscaloosa-based company, and will provide some 20 jobs with a collective six-figure payroll.

It’s also a step toward boosting Gadsden’s presence in the health-care field and its goal of developing the riverfront area.

“Health care has been the fastest-growing industry in the United States for the last 20 years, and it’s projected to be the fastest-growing industry … for the next 20 years,” David Hooks, executive director of the Gadsden-Etowah Industrial Development Authority, told the attendees from the area’s political, business and medical communities.

“When I took over as the IDA director, one of the first initiatives that we did … was to include health care as one of our targeted sectors,” he said. “We have a major health-care community in this area, we're a regional health hub and there’s no reason for us not to continue to develop that growth.”

Keith Whitley, Alabama Cancer Care’s CEO, said once the company understood the city’s commitment to take health care in the area “to the next level,” it was simply a matter of finding the right place to locate.

The City Council last August authorized the sale of the old armory property, and the transaction was closed in November, shortly after Mayor Craig Ford took office. The final price of $597,000 was nearly $100,000 more than the land’s appraised value.

Ford thanked Alabama Cancer Care “for investing in Gadsden,” but noted that the deal was reached during former Mayor Sherman Guyton’s administration.

“This is easy for us,” he said. “It’s great to take over from an administration that does all the work, and we get to cut all the ribbons.”

Guyton attended the ceremony and called the project “really great for our area,” adding, “These folks who have put this together, they know what they’re doing, I assure you.”

However, Ford noted that it was in step with his “very aggressive agenda of development projects to move Gadsden forward,” and promised that Thursday’s groundbreaking was “the first of many more to come.”

He cited his plan to develop Gadsden’s riverfront by moving the current U.S. Highway 431/Albert Rains Boulevard, and said the cancer center “plays right into” that vision of a health care and entertainment district that improves the city’s quality of life.

Tim Coker of Capital Program Management, which is developing the site and has a long-term relationship with Alabama Cancer Care, said the new facility will offer full-service oncology care, both medical and radiation, PET scan diagnostics and two active physicians under the same roof.

Those physicians will be medical oncologist/hematologist Dr. Shawnta Anakwah, who already practices in Gadsden at the company’s current location at 355 S. Second St., and radiation oncologist Dr. Justin Steinman, who is completing his radiation residency at the University of South Carolina, but will be on staff by the time the center opens.

Whitley said Alabama Cancer Care has had a long-term commitment to Gadsden — Dr. Ashvini Sengar, the company’s president, has practiced here for years and according to the CEO has long had a vision for a full-service cancer center here — and is committed to becoming fully integrated in the community, including using local labor in the construction of the new facility.

This article originally appeared on The Gadsden Times: Ground broken for new cancer center in Gadsden