A new public health clinic is coming to southern Dallas County, on its way to replacing a vacant lot where bales of hay sit amid the area’s many warehouses and the sound of semis whizzing by on Interstate 45.
Parkland Health’s new Inland Port health center is expected to address a hole in health care options for communities in the southeastern part of the county, where residents could be traveling miles to see a doctor.
Southern Dallas County has long grappled with health disparities. Residents in southern Dallas face higher rates of chronic disease, and life expectancies in this part of the county are more than a decade shorter in some areas when compared with those north of Interstate 30.
“When you look at the community, it is a health care desert,” said Edmundo Castañeda, Parkland’s chief operating officer. “There is very limited primary care that’s available in close proximity to where people live.”
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The new clinic is expected to sit between warehouses in Wilmer, part of a larger development promising retail, lodging and restaurants.
Castañeda said Parkland is in the early stages of planning the clinic, with construction expected to cost about $11 million.
As the county’s public hospital, Parkland got permission from county leaders to acquire the land in November. Parkland is now going through due diligence, assessing the property near Medline Drive as part of the land purchase. That’s expected to cost $3.4 million.
The site is “long overdue” for Wilmer-Hutchins, said John Wiley Price, the area’s county commissioner. The area has been underserved for years, he said.
“It is one of the fastest-growing portions of Dallas County in terms of its industrial base,” Price said. “And because of its industrial base and because of the growth spurt, we’re beginning to think more and more about residential coming into that area.”
Parkland sees need from Inland Port
The Inland Port area, home to more than 45,000 jobs, stretches across Wilmer, Hutchins and Lancaster, along with parts of Dallas and DeSoto. The area serves as an industrial hub for a variety of companies, including Amazon, Kroger, Procter & Gamble and Medline.
In recent years, the Inland Port area has seen its business boom. But it is particularly vulnerable when it comes to health, Castañeda said. Over the next decade or two, he said it needs the investment.
There is a “dearth of medical providers in the area,” Castañeda said. The clinic would be about 13 miles from Parkland’s health center in Southeast Dallas and 16 miles from its C.V. Roman center to the west at the Shops at RedBird.
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In the hospital system’s emergency department, about 30% of visits from the area are for “lower-acuity” conditions, Castañeda said. That means they’re visiting for conditions that could be handled outside the ER. He added that about 30% of surveyed adults in the area felt their health was fair or poor.
Factors outside of health care can also drive health outcomes, Castañeda said, including access to utilities and transportation, food insecurity, poverty levels or the employment rate.
Small cities to see benefit
While thousands of people flock to the area for work or pass through on the highway, others live there.
Wilmer is a “very small city,” with a population under 10,000, but is home to many businesses, said Mayor Sheila Petta. The city is also home to many seniors and children who have to head elsewhere, through traffic to places like Duncanville, to get care, Petta said.
“This is going to be very beneficial to us, but it’s also going to be very beneficial to the other areas outside my city limits,” Petta said. “It will be very convenient for the people out here and all the cities surrounding because they won’t have to get in all that congestion.”
Some residents have been against the center, worried it would attract “bad people” to the city, Petta said, but the majority she’s spoken with are glad to see it.
Both Wilmer and nearby Hutchins have a higher rate of uninsured residents when compared with state and national estimates.
In Wilmer, about a quarter of residents are estimated to be without health care coverage, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. The employment rate is estimated at nearly 57%, but about 16% of the population has a bachelor’s degree or higher.
In nearby Hutchins, a smaller city part of the Inland Port, about 24% are estimated to not have health coverage, according to the Census Bureau. The employment rate is nearly 44% and about 7% percent have a bachelor’s degree or higher.
Hay bales sit in a field that will be the future site of a Parkland Clinic on Monday, March 9, in Wilmer.
Angela Piazza / Staff Photographer
Mario Vasquez, the Hutchins mayor, said he was happy about how the new center would benefit the area. He said the city has more jobs than residents, but it is expecting about 1,000 new homes over the next year.“It’s something certainly needed out here,” he said of the clinic.
Clinic offers solution to growing need
At around 10,000 square feet, the clinic could provide residents with a one-stop shop for their health care needs.
It’s expected to offer primary, pediatric and dental care, lab work and pharmacy services. With strategy around the clinic’s design, it could help people get diagnosed and treated sooner, Castañeda said.
“We’re trying to create a clinic setting where it’s convenient for patients, recognizing that they’ve got transportation barriers and a whole host of other considerations in their life that may preclude them from accessing health care to begin with,” Castañeda said.
He said the clinic’s presence could help drive improvements in other services for the community.
Mike Rader, a developer who said he’s worked in the Inland Port area for about 25 years, is working on the mixed-use development where the clinic will go.
The area has seen a “phenomenal” amount of growth in industry, bringing jobs and revenue, Rader said. Now, residential development is coming to the area, and with that some commercial activity along Interstate 45.
“It’s been exciting. It’s finally coming around,” Rader said.
Parkland is aiming to have construction mostly finished by May 2028.
This reporting is part of the Future of North Texas, a community-funded journalism initiative supported by the Commit Partnership, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, the Dallas Mavericks, the Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, Lisa and Charles Siegel, the McCune-Losinger Family Fund, The Meadows Foundation, the Perot Foundation, the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas and the University of Texas at Dallas. The News retains full editorial control of this coverage.