A plan to bring physicians to Coeur d'Alene is the basis for a new building south of the Interlake Medical Office at Lincoln Way and Emma Avenue and the rezoning of about six acres to the west.

Kootenai Health plans to create a primary care physician residency program through the University of Washington that would recruit 18 physicians here to complete the last three years of their medical training starting in July of 2014. According to Kootenai Health spokesman Dr. Richard McLandress, the program would encourage physicians to establish their professional practice in this area as 70 to 80 percent of UW graduate residents stay within 50 miles of their training site.

"There is a looming undersupply of family physicians as nearly 50 percent of those here are over age 55," he said. "Also, each new family physician who comes to a community creates six to seven new jobs and stimulates approximately $1.3 million in additional community dollars each year, including $300,000 in new tax revenues each year."

The new 16,000-square-foot building attached to the Interlake Medical Building would include a clinic, offices and classroom space.

The property originally housed the former Mr. Steak building. The six-acre rezone will allow flexibility for the development of future medical facilities in the area, parking, buffer zones, sidewalks and landscaping and would improve traffic patterns. Most of the property is owned by Parkwood Business Properties, which owns the Interlake building that connects to Kootenai Medical Center via a tunnel under Ironwood Drive.

Family physicians expanding offices

Support staff offices of the North Idaho Family Physicians will consolidate in a new location at 1110 W. Park Place. The 3,650-square-foot space formerly housed the Idaho Child Welfare Research and Training Center, which moved to Suite 130 at 2005 Ironwood Parkway.

To open at the end of August, the new office primarily will handle financial services for North Idaho Family Physicians, which includes several physicians in the region.

The 20,668-square-foot Park Place building's amenities include an interior slate courtyard with skylights, a granite pond, elevator and conference rooms. Three suites are available. Contact Jim Valle at 667-4086.

HighPoint Medical moves to CdA

Providing support services for medical providers, HighPoint Medical has moved from Post Falls to 693 W. Canfield Ave., Coeur d'Alene. The 6,000-square-foot building is west of Olive Garden restaurant and Highway 95.

With clients in three time zones and 16 employees, HighPoint's services include billing and collections, electronic medical records implementation and support and information technology support and hosting for single and physician groups and small hospitals.

Office hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays with 24-hour service available. Phone 209-6170. Check www.highpointmed.com.

Here's this week's tidbits:

• Jimmy John's will open in Hayden Aug. 23. Watch this space next week for details.

• Aaargh! Some TV weather people print temperatures will be in the 80's. Wrong. It's simple plural at 80s. Just like I was born in the '40s with the apostrophe for the 19. However, a single plural unit does use the apostrophe; I didn't get all A's in school.

• Contact Nils Rosdahl at [email protected].