CAPE'S MEDICAL NEIGHBORHOOD

For 20 years, Doctors' Park has worked to become Cape Girardeau's medical neighborhood.

The 51-acre medical campus, which brings doctors and medical support services together, is celebrating two decades of service to the region.

Dr. Thomas Sparkman was recently re-elected chairman of the board at Cape Girardeau Doctors' Park.

"We have something here that we are proud of," Sparkman said. "We're proud of what we've accomplished in Doctors' Park.

"Two decades ago, when we started this, we wanted a showcase the community could point to with pride and say that's where our doctors work.

"We came out here to the edge of town and built Doctors' Park."

Now, he said, Doctors' Park is a model for other communities.

Sparkman said, "We have doctors' groups come in to study our arrangement and to copy our operation here."

Ron Wittmer, president of Doctors' Park, said: "Our main trust is high-quality patient care. We also strive for convenience for our patients. When you are going to the doctor or taking someone to the doctor, you are stressed. We are trying to make the visit less stressful in a pleasant atmosphere."

Doctors' Park draws patients from a population base of about 350,000 people in a five-state region.

"I'm always amazed that people drive here from quite-a-ways north," Wittmer said.

During any given day, 2,500 to 2,800 people will come to Doctors' Park.

The park was created by Cape Girardeau's physicians as a place to nurture young medical specialists and offer quality care to patients.

Dr. Melvin Kasten, one of the originators of the project, said: "There is no other place like this in the United States. We have doctors from Kansas City to California coming in to visit. They are amazed to find a facility like this in a town of 35,000."

Before construction began at Doctors' Park, the site along Interstate 55 in the western part of Cape Girardeau was a wheat field.

Wittmer said: "In a town this size, the medical community in the late 1960s had the foresight to purchase land and build a doctors' park in such a good area, anticipating the future. Now, 20 years later, we are right where the action is."

The park started in 1971 with 20 doctors and has grown today to include over 120 physicians, dentists and other professionals.

Wittmer said he believes Doctors' Park will continue to grow.

"As long as Cape Girardeau's two hospitals are providing quality medical care, they will need good physicians and the doctors need an office," he said.

Wittmer said: "It's amazing. Since I've been here, there has always been interest in land here; if it's not new people locating here, then people who were renting want to build."

Right now the Cape Girardeau Prosthetic Lab is building a building at the park.

Wittmer said the pattern has been that a physician leases office space from Doctors' Park while he or she establishes a practice. Then the physician decides to build a building.

"It's a big advantage to a new physician to be in the Doctors' Park family," Wittmer said.

"I think there will always be enough people coming and going that Doctors' Park will be active and growing," Wittmer said.

Sparkman said that when Doctors' Park was being planned, the idea of a campus-like setting was key.

"We wanted trees, grass, flowers. We wanted to give the community a showpiece," said Sparkman. "We're continuing to work on that today."

For example, this past year Doctors' Park has redesigned the signs in the park to help patients find doctors' offices more easily.

The lighting in the park was replaced, and most recently the roads in the park were resurfaced.

"That is going to continue," Sparkman said. "We have a plan for changing flower beds and shrubbery and upgrading the landscaping next."

Two boards govern Doctors' Park Doctors' Park Inc., the corporation, and the Doctors' Park Covenant Board. Wittmer is president of the corporation and executive secretary of the Covenant Board.

The corporation is made up of stockholders and oversees rental buildings, the Doctors' Park Surgery and sale of the remaining land at the park.

The group also works with local governments and has actual ownership of the park, Wittmer said.

The Covenant Board is made up of landowners in the park. "Their main purpose is keeping up the image of the park," Wittmer said.

This group is responsible for the recent road resurfacing project, new street lights, a new sign system to help patients find their doctors' offices, and landscaping.

This board ensures that new buildings complement the existing buildings.

Wittmer said, "We are also looking at a possible Vision 2000 project."

He said the group is thinking of filling the lake to make way for further development.

"We are also considering a jogging and exercise trail. We want to keep as much of a park-like setting as possible.

"We want to make Doctors' Park Cape Girardeau's medical neighborhood," Wittmer said.