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About The Columbia press. (Astoria, Or.) 1949-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 19, 2018)
8 October 19, 2018 T he C olumbia P ress Health providers move to new Astoria clinic Five years ago, Colum- the country, hospital officials said. Since the Warren- bia Memorial Hospital ton clinic opened, it opened its primary has grown from one care center and then provider serving 2,000 added an urgent care patients to six provid- center in Warrenton. ers serving 11,500 pa- On Oct. 1, CMH Pri- tients. mary Care opened the “Even after two ex- doors of its new Asto- Flescher pansions, we had out- ria location. grown the original Three providers have clinic,” said Nicole moved practices from Williams, CMH’s chief the Warrenton clinic to operating officer. “So the new clinic in Asto- rather than expand ria. They are Dr. Kevin again, we made the de- Baxter, Dr. Anisa Rich- cision to open a second ardson and Mary Riz- Erikson location that would be zo, family nurse practi- more convenient for tioner. They are joined our patients in Asto- by three new provid- ria, Knappa and Pacific ers, Rachel Flescher, a County.” physician’s assistant; And last week, the Dr. Elizabeth Erik- Clatsop County Board son, an osteopath; of Commissioners and Wendy Hovden, a Hovden agreed to sell 7.73 acres nurse practitioner. Demand for primary med- at the North Coast Business ical care has grown across Park to the hospital for an ex- panded clinic and lab. Sales price was $463,200. Once it’s built, the clinic in Warrenton Highlands Shop- ping Center will move to the new location near Costco. n eW a storia staFF Flescher is interested in family medicine, pediatrics, women’s health and diabetes management. She graduated from Oregon Health & Sci- ence University. Erikson focuses on the whole person and whole fam- ily care, and uses osteopath- ic manipulations and my- ofascial release techniques with patients. She earned her medical degree from A.T. Still University’s School of Osteopathic Medicine in Mesa, Ariz. Hovden has a master’s de- gree from Walden University in Minnesota. Astoria Primary Care is in the Park Medical Building. Arnie’s: Diner to move near Warrenton City Hall Continued from Page 1 near Warrenton High School. Their agreement with New- ton allows them to rent his building adjacent to City Hall for 5 to 10 years, at which point they may choose to pur- chase it. “As a commissioner, one of my duties is to do what I think will drive the most people to downtown Warren- ton,” Newton said. “I’ve had four people vying to rent my building … but a restaurant, I believe, will drive business downtown. It will make the businesses downtown more valuable.” Other prospective tenants were a construction com- pany, a church and a day- care center, he said. But the restaurant meshes well with nearby senior housing proj- ects, the city park, the library and City Hall. The building currently The former Napa Auto Parts store in downtown Warrenton. housing Arnie’s needs some long-term repairs, Green said, and she faced the pros- pect of closing for up to eight weeks to make them. Moving made more sense. “We’ll get a little bit of breathing room and flexibil- ity with how many we can seat and how we configure things,” she said. “The kitch- en can run much more effi- ciently because we can de- sign it to do so. Right now, equipment is where it fits, not where it’s most efficient.” Her first year managing Arnie’s had ups and downs, Green said. “I learned the hard way to be more consid- erate of all the staff that she (Garrett) had carried.” But once Green got her bearings, business boomed. “We have been so blessed by our following,” she said. “We just keep growing. War- renton is really important to us and we want to enhance downtown.”
