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Multiple pediatric dentists and orthodontists are combining their talents to open two new offices in a new two-story building under construction in the Queensgate area of Richland by spring 2019.
This will include the offices and doctors from Smile Surfers in Richland, Tri-City Orthodontics in Kennewick and Parkinson + Butler Orthodontics in Richland.
The five doctors formed a limited liability corporation and have broken ground on a new building at 3200 Duportail St., next to the newly opened DQ Grill & Chill.
Dr. David Butler said each practice had been “coincidentally and independently” looking for a new location. The owners of Smile Surfers and Tri-City Orthodontics learned of the property available on Duportail, but then found an offer on the land had been made by another group of dental professionals.
Preferring to see fellow orthodontists as “colleagues, and not competitors,” Butler said he and Dr. Chris Parkinson were open to the idea of merging their practice with the doctors who had made the offer on the lot, which included Dr. Jonathan Collette, an orthodontist, and Dr. David Hamilton and Dr. James Collette, pediatric dentists. The two Collettes are brothers.
Together, the orthodontists will practice under the name Tri-City Orthodontics, which is currently used by Dr. Jonathan Collette.
This is the pediatric dentists’ second foray into opening a pediatric dental and orthodontic clinic after launching Dentistry for Kids on Quillan Place in Kennewick, adjacent to Highway 395.
Hamilton and James Collette sold the Kennewick clinic last year and rebranded their Richland location as Smile Surfers. The doctors have a sister Smile Surfers practice in Sumner.
Hamilton said the dentists “intend to promote a different type of model for pediatric dentistry. More preventative-based and curriculum-based, but also a fun place for education.”
They are leasing the building where they currently practice at 39 Columbia Point Drive, near Winco, and will vacate the space once the new clinic is ready.
Tri-City Orthodontics will continue to lease space at 2611 S. Quillan Place and keep the office there after it’s rebranded to include Parkinson and Butler.
Jonathan Collette expected to keep his Southridge office and his current team in place there. “We felt that if we combined our offices, we could offer better hours and better services to our patients,” he said.
Parkinson owns the building at 112 Columbia Point Drive where he practices, and intends to lease the vacant space once the move to the new Richland location is complete.
The building on Duportail will be about 20,000 square feet, with the dental and orthodontic offices each taking up about 5,000 square feet in separate spaces on the second floor.
The lower floor will be available for potential retail space and is currently planned as six separate 1,500-square-foot suites but could be built to suit a tenant. The facility will sit on a 1.6-acre lot.
Once open, Parkinson and Butler intend to close their Columbia Point office and move their entire team to the new location.
Together, the three doctors will rotate between the Kennewick and new Richland offices. Jonathan Collette said he hopes this allows the Kennewick office to open an extra day of the week so patients have the chance to visit an orthodontist on any weekday, between the two practices.
Butler said he believes the majority of patients currently seen at each location may stay at their original treatment site, but some might choose to visit a different office once the flexibility presents itself.
The group is financing the project locally through Community First Bank. It’s expected to cost about $5.3 million between the $3.4 million cost of the building and the remaining money for the lot, fees and architecture, which was done by Terence L. Thornhill Architect in Pasco.
The build is expected to take nine months, with completion set for February 2019.