UAB Medicine-Leeds will soon be under construction on Rex Lake Road as a recent decision by the Leeds Special Healthcare Financing Authority will provide a loan to spur the project. 

Furthering its efforts to assist in bringing a clinic to the city, this week Leeds floated a bond to help finance the project.

On Feb. 1, the City of Leeds Special Healthcare Financing Authority authorized the issue of a bond worth approximately $10 million to fund the acquisition, construction and equipping of a free-standing health care clinic planned by the University of Alabama at Birmingham for Rex Lake Road.

According to Leeds City Attorney J. Scott Barnett, the bond represents a self-funding transaction. During the meeting, the foundation approved to loan the money from the bond to UAB. In this way, the transaction will not represent a loss to the City.

The Authority was revived for this purpose. Barnett said it was first created in 1979 and has been dormant for several years.

UAB’s planned $5 million, 17,000-square-foot clinic, called UAB Medicine-Leeds, is due to start providing services by Labor Day, he added. A groundbreaking for the clinic was held in December 2014. The facility has already received approval from the Leeds Planning and Zoning Board, and Barnett said he expects UAB to close on the land on or before Friday, Feb. 6.

The site is located on Rex Lake Road off Exit 140 on I-20. In opening the new facility this summer, UAB will relocate services from its current clinic in the area, UAB Medicine-Moody. According to a release from UAB, this is a proactive move to “satisfy customer needs and the expected growth at Exit 140.”

UAB Medicine-Leeds is currently planned as a clinic and a UAB Hospital outpatient diagnostic center. The center, to be located adjacent to the clinic, will feature MRI, CT, ultrasound, digital X-ray, bone-density scanning and mammography. Full ambulatory lab services also will be provided on-site, and various UAB specialists will conduct weekly clinics there.

Dr. Stephen Russell, UAB Medicine-Moody lead physician, will lead the new clinic’s team of four physicians and two nurse practitioners.