Neighborhood Health Center wrapping up another West Side expansion

True to its name, Neighborhood Health Center prioritizes meeting patients where they are and expanding needed health services in those neighborhoods. 

The health center is now wrapping up its latest expansion project – at its Mattina location at 300 Niagara St. on Buffalo’s West Side.

The two-story, 15,000-square-foot addition at the corner of Niagara and Carolina streets nearly doubles the size of the 23,000-square-foot building where Neighborhood Health Center has been serving the community for more than a decade. It will significantly grow the clinic’s dental suite and add space for care coordinators, community health workers and administrative staff.

By expanding services in easily accessible locations, Neighborhood Health Center President and CEO Joanne Haefner said “we know that our patients will have better health outcomes.”

The site’s expanded dental wing expects to see its first patients Monday. Then, a ribbon-cutting ceremony will follow Aug. 10.

The 300 Niagara St. site has a long history of providing health care services – in fact, that’s where Columbus Hospital once stood.

That legacy has continued with Neighborhood Health Center. 

Haefner said the organization has invested about $9 million into the location, between buying the site from Kaleida Health, improving the existing interior and undergoing the almost-finished expansion.

The clinic’s dental practice previously had three dental operatories that were built in the 1990s and due for modernization. The expansion added five dental operatories and lab space, meaning the Mattina location will have eight dental operatories. 

Haefner said dental care is an “incredibly important” priority for the organization, which has seen patients with a high need for restorative dental. Haefner notes that preventative dental is too often what people skip when their lives become chaotic. 

“So much of chronic…