ASHWAUBENON (WLUK) — Bellin Health has started construction on its new pediatric and adolescent care center.

First announced in May 2022, the clinic is being built on a former hotel site along Ashland Avenue, immediately south of State Highway 172.

Pediatric Specialties Team Leader Jamie Hagenow Sekora said the two-story, 75,000 square-foot building officially broke ground last month. If all goes according to schedule, she said the clinic will start welcoming patients in the fall of 2025.

“We’re going to have everything from pediatric mental health to pediatric primary care, and then some of our specialties from Bellin, along with specialties from Children’s Wisconsin, along with PT [physical therapy], OT [occupational therapy] and speech,” Hagenow Sekora said.

She explained how the clinic will help meet the needs of Northeast Wisconsin children and families.

We know that many of our parents and families today end up driving down to Milwaukee, down to Madison, for literally a 20-minute visit. So, this is going to help bring some of those specialties up here to Northeastern Wisconsin, and then they’re going to be able to get all of the care they need in one location, rather than having to go to therapy over here, to mental health on this side of town. Everything will be underneath the one building.

Hagenow Sekora said the center will include an all-inclusive playground for therapy, as well as independent apartment living to help teach life skills to individuals on the spectrum.

Bellin Health is aiming to get the children and community it serves involved in the building’s construction process.

“We’re actually looking at adolescents helping us with the question of, ‘What chairs do they want in the building? What do our parents want in this building?’” Hagenow Sekora said.

A list of the different children’s specialties the clinic will have available is to be announced in the “near future.” Hagenow Sekora said this center is part of an expansion and Bellin Health is not closing any other sites.