The Newark Ambulatory Surgery Center is getting a $15 million face-lift as health-care competition for patients in Licking County continues to grow.

Already, Licking Memorial Hospital is in the midst of a $39 million construction project to add an 83,000 square-foot critical-care pavilion to be completed in late 2007.

The surgery center, which is changing its name to the Medical Center of Newark, will build a two-story, 45,000-square-foot addition with space for 22 beds for patients staying overnight. The 8-year-old center currently handles only outpatient cases.

The number of surgical procedures at the center has grown to 7,700 a year from 1,200 in 1998, said lawyer James R. Havens, a partner in Scout Development Limited. The group is overseeing construction and will manage the center.

Construction is scheduled to begin in July with completion in mid-to-late 2007. The center will grow to 67,500 square feet and will end up with four operating rooms, three treatment rooms and an expanded imaging operation.

The current center has a board of directors and Havens said that board would remain and be expanded. Dr. Alex Juan and Dr. Donald Jones, who both previously worked at Licking Memorial, are partners in Scout Development.

Havens doesn't see the improved center as a direct competitor with Licking Memorial, but Bill Andrews, the hospital's CEO, thinks otherwise.

"Since the surgery center was built, we have viewed them as competition," he said. "I guess my initial reaction is it's unfortunate as a privately owned facility they don't have to come forward and justify to the community what their motives are … Our basic point is this is unnecessary."

A spokesperson for Mount Carmel Health System, which has a hospital in eastern Franklin County near the Licking County line, said that hospital gets patients from Licking County. Mount Carmel takes in patients throughout the central Ohio region.

"We know people prefer to receive their primary health care closer to home," Janice Pischitelli said. "We are here providing highly specialized services."

Havens noted that expected population growth in Licking County, along with estimates that up to 50 percent of patients in the county go elsewhere for medical treatment, is what is driving the expansion.

"We're looking to just capture the new residents and those leaving Licking County (for treatment elsewhere)," he said.

"We don't view this as competition. Licking Memorial has done a good job. We have had a cooperative relationship with them in the past and hope to have a cooperative relationship in the future."