Two years after UPMC razed its former hospital in Braddock, Mon Valley residents learned Tuesday that a walk-in health center soon will open on the site.

“It’s Christmas in April,” Mayor John Fetterman said. “There has been a huge, gaping wound there with access to health care.”

Insurance giant Highmark Inc. and MedExpress announced an agreement, which Allegheny County officials helped broker, for the urgent care operator to become the anchor tenant of a nearly 30,000-square-foot office and retail building. Construction will begin this summer, and the medical center could open by summer 2013.

“We’re excited this will provide some of the care that isn’t being provided now,” County Executive Rich Fitzgerald said yesterday at a press conference in his Downtown office.

The proposed development would include housing for rent and sale, and a community park.

Officials project a cost of $20.3 million, with the 5,000-square-foot MedExpress space to cost $4.5 million. They did not disclose the amount Highmark and MedExpress will pay. UPMC committed $3 million to redevelop the 100,000-square-foot site of the hospital it closed in January 2010.

Close to $8 million in private funding is expected to come from the sale of tax credits from the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency, said Dennis Davin, the county’s economic development director.

Taxpayers will pay $13 million for the project, including $3 million from the state and $3 million to $4 million more in federal and county money, Davin said.

Fitzgerald said he discussed the possibility of opening an urgent care center or other medical office with UPMC, the Cleveland Clinic and others. None was interested until Highmark and MedExpress, he said.

“They stepped up,” Fitzgerald said.

The MedExpress will operate from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. seven days a week, and officials said it will accept all insurance plans. The company has 79 centers in seven states, with plans to have about 120 by the end of the year.

The closest MedExpress location to Braddock is six miles away in Wilkins. UPMC operates an outpatient center two miles away in Forest Hills.

Then-County Executive Dan Onorato announced plans in December to redevelop the hospital site. Now a vice president at Highmark, Onorato yesterday said the MedExpress clinic adds value to the project and credited Fitzgerald for continuing to look for ways to provide medical care to people in the Mon Valley.

“There was a change of administration, not a change of commitment from the county,” Onorato said.

Community College of Allegheny County plans to hold classes in the new building, Fitzgerald said. Officials are in talks with at least five other commercial businesses about opening there.

Two dozen rental units will be available for families who earn less than $35,000 per year, with 11 single-family homes that will be for sale.

“This isn’t the end of Braddock development,” Fitzgerald said. “We expect more announcements, not just for Braddock, but for the entire valley.”

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