Celebrating the move to its new home at 830 S. Flower St., Keck Medicine of USC’s Downtown Los Angeles practice held a festive grand opening in February.

The event highlighted the office’s convenient location, improved access and expanded services for patients living in and around downtown’s South Park neighborhood.

“Location is key to serving this community,” said Scott Evans, PharmD, CEO of Keck Hospital of USC and USC Norris Cancer Hospital, at the grand opening. “By moving our clinic just a few blocks from our previous location, we are offering innovative, transformative health care just steps from where the people in this area work and live.”

In addition to newer facilities and more patient-care space, the new 8,000-square-foot location is tailored to downtown Los Angeles’ bustling population. It offers nine exam rooms, affordable parking options, extended hours and same-day appointments. The office continues to provide dermatology, gynecology and internal medicine services, as well as an Executive Health Program for professionals seeking customized, preventative care. New services include orthopaedic surgery, urology, imaging and mammography, and pharmacy services.

And, as an outpatient department of Keck Hospital of USC, the practice offers patients streamlined, more efficient coordination of care across all Keck Medicine facilities.

“USC had been serving the downtown community at our previous Hope Street location for nine years. With this move, we are impacting the lives of the community already,” said clinic medical director Gregory Taylor, assistant professor of clinical medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. “Since opening in December, we’ve doubled the amount of patients we’ve seen. The move, expanded services and world-class experts here have already proven to be a great asset to this community.”

The downtown office’s relocation comes at a time when downtown Los Angeles’ community is both growing and thriving. Recent reports show that more than 50,000 people currently live in the high rises along the streets surrounding the new clinic, and more than a half million employees fill up the area’s office towers during the day, making this neighborhood a hub for work and life.

“We want to support people close to where they live and work,” said Jan Perry, head of the Los Angeles Economic and Workforce Development Department, and a former Los Angeles City councilwoman. “We want to get people out of their cars, so the thought of being able to actually walk to the doctor is something I can’t even fathom. It just makes life so much simpler.”

By Tania Chatila