Westbrook Plaza Project — Historic Innovation in San Francisco’s Growing South of Market Neighborhood

After more than 15 years of planning, South of Market Health Center will make history when it breaks ground on its new community health center in 2007.

Never before in the history of San Francisco has a community health center been built from the ground up as a new state-of-the-art facility. Once the new health center is open, SMHC will serve twice as many patients as it does today, thereby responding to the urgent need and demand for more primary and family health care services in this growing region of San Francisco.

Also noteworthy has been the leadership and vision of the SMHC Board of Directors in looking at this project as an opportunity to do something that had never been done before. Early in the planning process, the Board of Directors invited Mercy Housing California (MHC), a nationally recognized developer of affordable housing, to join SMHC in this truly public-private partnership.

SMHC has made a commitment to this community and we demonstrate this commitment daily in practical, life changing ways. This project has provided a platform for presenting our vision of how to better serve this community, provide more integrated care with other service providers, and to expand the vision of the Board of Directors to serve similar populations in other areas. Building a new facility provides a unique opportunity to provide a clinic that is more expansive in its service, conveys a stronger value of customer service and is convenient and attractive for the people who depend on it.