PORT ANGELES — North Olympic Healthcare Network is in expansion mode.
The Port Angeles medical services provider will locate its administrative offices in the former Cowboy Country clothing store at 923 E. First St. and soon will open a new dental office next door, in the building NOHN began leasing last summer.
Two dentists will be added to the medical staff when the remodel project is completed at NOHN’s Expanded Services Building at 933 E. First St., Kelly Duncan, NOHN chief operating officer, said Friday.
The project is valued at $304,000 according to a building permit issued Dec. 5 that expires June 3.
The administrative offices located in the 3,100-square foot Cowboy Country building will have room for expansion, Duncan said, adding that the administrative staff has outgrown existing facilities.
“Being able to keep those buildings close together is a benefit,” Duncan said.
“We like that area.”
The new dental office will be open “probably this month,” Duncan said, adding NOHN will provide more details when making formal announcement of the opening.
The general dentistry clinic will serve patients of all ages, she said.
The 3,100-square-foot Cowboy Country building is owned by former Cowboy Country retailers Maria and Darren Rentas of Rentas Investments LLC of Port Angeles.
They closed the store earlier this year after 25 years of selling country western-themed apparel and related items.
The Rentases approached NOHN about leasing the building, which underwent major renovations 15 years ago when they moved there from East U.S. Highway 101, where the store was located for 10 years.
“We provided the space for North Olympic Healthcare because there was a need for space for them,” Maria Rentas said Friday.
“We built the building as a retirement for my husband and I, and now we are moving on to that stage in our life.”
“We were happy to help and accommodate Darren and Maria,” Duncan said.
“It’s a good partnership.”
Duncan said the new dental office, in a building owned by Sequim-based Howards Ventures, was in the works before the Rentases approached NOHN about renting the Cowboy Country building.
“We want the opportunity to expand in the future,” Duncan said.
“It’s part of our future planning.
“I don’t have any specific services in mind.”
NOHN, which has a large clinic at 240 W. Front is a federally qualified community health center.
As such, it offers a full range of primary care including obstetrics under the federally funded Health Resources & Services Administration Health Center Program, which provides medical services to underserved areas.
Care is offered on a sliding-fee scale based on ability to pay, with the center operated under a governing board that includes patients.
The board members are Thomas Sanford, Mary Ellen Winborn, James Galvin, Luke Robins, David Chance, Mary Hebert, Bill Baccus, Cathy Marshall, Jody Moss, Stacy Ritchie and Catherine Copass, and Stan Garlick, according to the NOHN website at www.nohn-pa.org.
Garlick is the registered agent for Downtown Ambulatory Health Center LLC of Port Angeles, which owns NOHN’s 240 W. Front St. land and building, valued at $2 million, and which is based at a home Garlick owns in Port Angeles, according to county and state records.
Family Medicine became a federally qualified health center in 2015 and was renamed North Olympic Healthcare Network, by last June tripling its staff to 100 employees, CEO Dr. Michael Maxwell told Peninsula Daily News last June.
By then, NOHN was accepting between 100 and 120 new patients each month.
The dental clinic will take up about one-fifth of the new facility at 933 E. First St., Maxwell said then.
Maxwell was not in his office Friday.
“There are so many people not getting oral health care, they are ending up in the [emergency room] and they are suffering with abscesses and poor health because of it,” Maxwell said in June.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.