The end is near, and so is the beginning.

The decades-old Cooper Green Hospital building is weeks away from giving way to the new Cooper Green Mercy Health. On Wednesday, media members were given a tour of the facility that will open in earnest in mid-December.

David Randall, CEO of Cooper Green Healthcare Authority, said the old building closed as a hospital around 2010. At that point, he said, the cost and inefficiency of the hospital didn’t make sense.

“Unfortunately, that was designed as a hospital and operated like a hospital,” he said. “If you go over there, you can see the difference. It wasn’t clinic-friendly. It wasn’t patient-friendly.

“But the new footprint and the new home that we have is much more geared toward and designed toward patient care itself,” the CEO said. “I think the efficiency of flow, the ease of access and use throughout – and the advancement of services – is very different from what we had at the old hospital footprint.”

Asked what the new, nearly-200,000-square-foot Cooper Green has, Randall replied with a question: “What doesn’t it have?”

“All of the services that we had at the old clinic will also be here,” he began, citing urgent care, primary care and a variety of sub-specialty services, such as cardiology and urology. It also features enhancements.

“One of those enhancements is around our pharmacy,” Randall said. “Those who visited in our old building will truly appreciate the flow, the waiting area and the efficiency of service that we provide.

“We will actually have an MRI, which we do not have in the old building,” he continued. “I’m most excited about our physical therapy space, which, quite frankly, I would like to go and use and workout. It has both an indoor and an outdoor space. And we’re also expanding dental and eye services for our patients.”

The CEO called the pending move the end and then a new beginning for Cooper Green. And the job continues from there.

“Once we have the foundation of the home built, now we’re looking outside the four walls,” he said. “How do we engage our communities outside of just the clinic? We want to move from treatment to how do we address prevention, truly wellness and wellbeing. We’re focusing on what we can do in the different communities.”

The new Cooper Green Mercy Health is at 1515 6th Ave. South, near the old location.

Randall said he and other leaders are also investigating other sites where Cooper Green Mercy Health might create a clinic presence that’s more convenient for patients in markets beyond the new building.

“Quite frankly, I believe what we’re building here can truly be a national benchmark or a model for others,” he said, “how they can improve the health and lives of the communities that we serve.”

The CEO expressed gratitude to employees who began and continue on the journey with Cooper Green.

“It’s been a process,” he said. “We started talking about a new clinic almost a decade ago – from conception to at least design to a realization. We had our employees come over last month. If they hadn’t already been here, they were completely blown away by the layout and the environment in which we’re working.

“This facility is really designed around our employees and our patients,” Randall said. “That’s not true necessarily with the old hospital, where you had to retrofit and squeeze things in. We’re really focusing on creating an environment that nurtures and, quite frankly, develops a healing environment, a healing atmosphere.”

Randall addressed the misconception that Cooper Green serves only poor people.

“Cooper Green provides services for everybody,” he said. “You don’t have to just be Jefferson County and you don’t have to be in Birmingham. Or you don’t have to not have insurance.

“I would say a third of our patients are with Blue Cross, Medicare or Medicaid,” the CEO said. “But to apply and enroll in the indigent fund, it does require that you are a Jefferson County resident and then there are some income thresholds that are associated with that. But we are open to providing service to all individuals.”

The official opening of Cooper Green Mercy Medical is in mid-December. Info is available here.