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Jacksonville-based Digestive Disease Consultants will open its seventh area location next year with a 14,377-square-foot surgery center in Orange Park. 

It will offer three gastrointestinal procedure rooms, six exam rooms and pathology. The facility could be expanded to offer radiology services, said Dr. Ajmal Hameed a gastroenterologist with the practice. 

The practice operates a similar facility with the Riverside Endoscopy Center at 2151 Riverside Ave.

It has six medical offices in Riverside, along University Boulevard, in San Pablo and in Orange Park, Saint Johns and Middleburg.

The new surgery center is under construction at 870 Kingsley Ave., about a mile from its medical office.

Sauer Inc. is the contractor and Fisher Koppenhafer is the architect. 

Hameed expects a construction cost of $6 million. It will  open in the next six to seven months, he said.

The practice purchased the 0.4-acre lot for $618,600 in 2018.

Digestive Disease Consultants plans to hire four physicians to staff the facility. It now employs six physicians, two advanced registered nurse practitioners and a physician assistant. 

Hameed said the practice eventually could build another center along Philips Highway.

After that, the goal would be to expand into St. Johns County, said Dr. Brent Stottman, a physician with the practice.

“One center at a time,” Hameed said.

Stottman said the practice has been able to differentiate itself from similar providers, helping it to grow with the expanding Northeast Florida population.

“We’re the only GI group where everything is locally owned and operated by the physicians,” he said. “We provide local, high-quality, low-cost, comprehensive GI care.

“We’d like to continue to grow our practice and provide quality care to the people of Jacksonville, Clay County, Nassau County, St. Johns County and grow along with the city.”