Old Skyline building to become Medicare Advantage

Sept. 22--A 95,000-square-foot Medicare Advantage health clinic under construction on Southwest 17th Street is due to begin offering urgent care in November or December.

Sidd Pagidipati of Pagidipati Family Investments said the clinic in the former Skyline Corp. building, near the intersection of Southwest 19th Avenue Road, also is scheduled to offer "various" specialty services beginning in the first quarter of next year but no primary care.

The entire project is targeted for completion by the end of 2015.

Pagidipati said the new center is the vision of his father, Dr. Devaiah Pagidipati, whom he described as "a serial health care entrepreneur."

"He has been involved in all aspects," said Sidd Pagidipati. "He's been a chief of anesthesia and a pediatric anesthesiologist. He's run one of the largest independent clinical labs here in Florida. He and I started Freedom Health together, which is a large Medicare Advantage health plan."

Charles B. Clayton, a project superintendent with Cullison-Wright Construction, said building of the walk-in clinic and parking lot is scheduled to finish by Nov. 1.

The Marion County Property Appraiser's Office indicates the former Skyline building dates to 1972. Clayton said there are some challenges in converting a former manufacturing plant to health care use.

"We spent a couple months earlier in the year with blowtorches, gutting all the assembly lines and iron that was inside, which (the Pagidipatis) recycled and put back into construction," Clayton said. "We had to go in and open walls for storefront doors and windows. We added medical oxygen, which wasn't there before."

Dr. Devaiah Pagidipati, according to his son, has "a vision for transforming health care" and will reveal more about the clinic in the weeks to come.

"He's seen a lot of areas where health care's been broken and it hasn't provided good quality outcomes and it's been very expensive for our country," Sidd Pagidipati said. "He feels that he's come up with a solution to transform that problem."

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