Lake City medical, wellness center to hold ribbon cutting

From left, Drs. Albert Mims, Ernest Atkinson, Wade Lamb and Richard Ellis gather Oct. 13 in the lobby of the new Live Oak Medical Center and iH3 Wellness Center in Lake City.

By: From staff reports | SCNow
Published: October 20, 2009

The Live Oak Medical Center and iH3 Wellness Center will hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 6 p.m. Oct. 27, the Greater Lake City Chamber of Commerce has announced.

The 36,000-square-foot facility will offer sick-care, well-care and rehabilitation under one roof at a nearly three-acre site at 148 Sauls St. in downtown Lake City.

“This is where healthcare is going,” Dr. Albert Mims said Oct. 13.

Mims will practice at the new center along with Drs. Ernest Atkinson, Richard Ellis and Wade Lamb. Mims said the doctors are hoping more Lake City residents will receive their medical care in their hometown instead of traveling to larger cities.

The facility and equipment are worth about $10 million, and the center is projected to generate about $8 million a year, architect Randy Key said in an e-mail interview earlier this year with the News & Post.

The physicians at the center will have 25 to 30 employees, wellness will offer 40 jobs, and physical therapy will employ four to six people, according to Key.

Also involved in the project are Dr. Steve Imbeau and attorney Ben Zeigler, both of Florence; Dr. Ann Kulze, a Charleston-based physician and nutritionist; Dr. Eddie Phillips of Harvard Medical School, also a physician and author of “Exercise is Medicine”; and Dan Lynch of VisionBridge wellness management in Fairfield, Conn.