Kalihi-Palama Health Center has embarked on a $10 million redevelopment project that will consolidate its nearly dozen locations scattered throughout the community.

The federally qualified health center that generates annual revenue of about $20 million received city approval this month to proceed with abatement work for lead and asbestos before renovating an existing building at 710 N. King Street into a health center for the Kalihi community. The site previously was used as a convenience store, small eatery and market.

The center treats 21,000 patients annually; with the additional space it will have the capacity to serve as many as 30,000 patients.

The first phase of the project, estimated to cost $5.5 million, also involves constructing a two-story structure over an adjacent parking lot. A proposed elevator tower will connect the two buildings.

Combined, the project will total 21,000 square feet, said Emmanuel Kintu, CEO and executive director of Kalihi-Palama Health Center. The center has 220 workers and expects to add at least another 50 employees for the new facility.

Kalihi-Palama runs three centers on North King Street, satellite clinics at Fort Street Mall and at the Institute for Human Services homeless shelter and at least five other locations in the area. It also operates Ohana House, where homeless patients discharged from hospitals can stay for up to 90 days to get healthy in a clean environment.

"It’s a scattered kind of thing, so we have to go through one facility after another," he said. "We’ve got several patients we serve who are not receiving the full spectrum of services because of our facilities problem."

Ideally clinics would have at least three rooms per provider to operate effectively, but "at times we only have one room per provider, which is not good," Kintu added. "That’s where the inefficiencies come in."

The center serves patients in 17 different languages, forcing interpreters to move from space to space "so you have to have more of them."

Once the new facility is built, the center plans to repurpose its other locations for community development, as well as adult day care and other enabling services.

The health center, which is leasing the land and building for about $11,000 a month, expects to open the facility in mid-2015 and boost revenue by $3 million a year.

"What this is going to do is allow us to consolidate services in a facility designed for effectiveness and efficiency in a patient-centered health-care home," he said.

The nonprofit also has up to four years to decide on a second phase of the project, which will likely include constructing a new building at the site of an adjacent church community hall.