HEALTHY GOALS Caritas Foxboro, Which Operates Cancer Care Services at 70 Walnut St., Has

HEALTHY GOALS -- Caritas Foxboro, which operates cancer care services at 70 Walnut St., has signed a 10-year lease on 10,000 square feet of office space at Chestnut Green, the former state hospital complex seen in this aerial photo.

Caritas aims to
expand across town

BY FRANK MORTIMER

July 17, 2008

Health care is returning to the former FoxboroStateHospital site, bringing the historic location full circle even as most of the vast campus is developed with homes, retail and recreation.

To make way for an expansion of cancer services at Caritas Foxboro at 70 Walnut St., CaritasNorwoodHospital plans to move some of its doctors to new offices at Chestnut Green -- the renovated state hospital.

Within the past month the Caritas organization signed a 10-year lease on 10,000 square feet of office space on the first floor at 15 Payson Rd., according to David Crocini, project manager VinCo, developer of the Chestnut Green mixed-use project.

“We’re really happy to have them. We think they’re going to be real happy there,” Crocini said.

The planned medical office site was the CentralServicesBuilding in the old FoxboroStateHospital, once housing kitchen and other core functions.

The new doctors’ offices at Chestnut Green are expected to open this fall, according to Mark Hasbrouck, vice president of business development for Caritas Norwood.

The Offices at Chestnut Green will house obstetrics and gynecology, endocrinology and a multiple sclerosis center.

Primary care will be offered at both Foxboro locations. Four primary doctors now working at Walnut Street will keep their practices there, where space for primary care is at capacity, he said.

Primary care physicians currently being recruited will work at Chestnut Green, probably starting next year.

“It will be much easier to recruit doctors when we can show them this beautiful new site,” Hasbrouck said of Chestnut Green.

Amna Khan, an obstetrician and gynecologist, and her nurse practitioner, Tina Rose, will be moving from Walnut Street to Chestnut Green, as will Dr. Padma Balasubramanian, an endocrinologist.

Dr. Salvatore Napoli, a neurologist specializing in multiple sclerosis, will be moving from Norwood to Chestnut Green.

Eight physicians plus 20 support staff members are anticipated at Chestnut Green.
Laboratory services will be housed there as well.

Hasbrouck said Caritas chose Chestnut Green for a number of reasons.

“One of the attractions for us is that Chestnut Green is really like a city within a city. The retail, office, residential and community use will be attractive,” he said.

Access to state highways is another plus.

“We looked at where the growth is going to be in our service area,” he added.

Hasbrouck said developer Vince O’Neill, owner of VinCo, and Crocini have proven to be “excellent business partners” for Caritas.

“They had a need for a tenant there and we had a need for a location where we could expand services to meet demand,” Hasbrouck said. “They were able to make the financial numbers work for us.”

Hasbrouck said the Payson Street building is still a shell, but that plans are underway for the renovation into medical offices. Nov. 1 is the target opening date, he said, but the schedule is flexible.

WALNUT STREET

Opening Caritas offices at Chestnut Green will free up space for the expansion of the services at the CancerCenter at Caritas Foxboro on Walnut Street, said Mary Wallan, director of communications for Caritas Norwood.

“We want to make it a destination cancer center -- a place where people can get more services and care close to home if they have cancer,” Wallan said.

Hasbrouck said some cancer patients receive treatment up to five times a week for many weeks, making a daily drive into Boston hospitals a burden.

Since May, the Walnut Street facility added digital mammography, the best screening technology for younger woman, Wallan said.

Dr. Charles Chen, a hematology oncologist now located in Walpole, will be moving his practice to Walnut Street this fall, she said.

The Walnut center already offers extensive chemotherapy and radiation therapy.

Built in 1994, the Caritas Foxboro on Walnut St. was expanded five years ago to its current 35,000 square feet size.

LEGACY OF CARE

FoxboroStateHospital opened in 1894 as the MassachusettsHospital for Dispomaniacs and Inebriates, the first recognition of alcoholism as a disease, according to town historian Jack Authelet. That hospital later move to Pondville, now Norfolk, and that hospital eventually became SouthwoodHospital, a leading cancer facility, which has since closed.

The Foxboro complex was converted for the treatment of mental illness as the FoxboroStateHospital, which provided state-of-the-art treatment of the mentally ill, Authelet said.

“They also had a residency in surgery and in psychiatry, and were on the leading edge of developing outpatient care for people with mental illness,” Authelet said.

The Foxboro hospital closed in 1975, and became a decaying eyesore. Years of effort by town officials led to the state’s selling of the land at auction in 2005 for development under a town and state approved plan.

VinCo bought 98 acres, and sold 40 of those acres to Michael Intoccia and Douglas King for development of single family homes as part of the masterplan, Crocini said. VinCo is renovating the historic hospital buildings on Chestnut Street and Payson Road.