Marshfield pregnancy clinic to build $1.7M facility

A recent groundbreaking by a Marshfield pregnancy clinic kicked off a $1.7 million project that will provide the nonprofit with a much larger home due to donated land by a local church.

The Aug. 15 ceremony for Choices Pregnancy Center Inc. was held at 555 Hillside Loop, which is a few miles from its current home at 1350 Spur Drive, Ste. 160. The Marshfield clinic, which offers services including ultrasound screenings, maternity resources, parenting classes and mentoring, opened in 2012.

Valerie Thompson, board chair, said Hillside Christian Church agreed to donate 3 acres of its 10-acre property to the nonprofit for construction of a roughly 9,800-square-foot clinic. Space constraints were a primary motivator for pursuing a new location, Thompson said.

“We really love the location,” she said of the clinic’s original Spur Drive space. “It’s 1,000 square feet, and we ran out of space within months of us opening.”

She said the current location basically just has space for an intake area and an ultrasound room.

“So, if we have a client come in by appointment for a class and we have someone coming in for an intake, if someone else walks in off the street, we really don’t have much we can do,” Thompson said. “We just need a bigger spot.”

Thompson said the organization is working with Joplin architect Jonathan Tasset on the design of the new clinic, which is expected to include an intake area, three client counseling rooms, an ultrasound room with a changing area, administrative offices, conference room, training area, kitchen and a laundry room. The nonprofit hired Calvin Morrow as its general contractor, who does business as Calvin Morrow LLC.

“It would just expand our space so much,” she said, adding the nonprofit also has been renting two storage facilities to house supplies it uses for fundraisers as well as donated equipment and items for babies and parents.

Excavation work is expected to start in about two weeks, Thompson said, but construction beyond that will proceed as more funds for the project are accrued. She said Choices has roughly half of the $1.7 million in a building fund.

“We knew for a long time that we were going to need to expand, so we have a little nest egg we’ve accumulated,” she said. “We just don’t want to go down to our last penny to build this.”

The organization annually has a pair of major fundraisers – a banquet in the fall and a Walk for Life in the spring, Thompson said. In the interim, Choices is seeking public support toward the building project.

“We’re depending on the generosity of our community to be able to do this,” she said.