Mercy Indianola Family Medicine Clinic is taking shape in the Summercrest Hills development on the north side of Indianola.

The 44,000-square-foot structure, with its sharply angled, sunlight-grabbing entrance, draws plenty of looks from commuters on U.S. Highway 65/69. But the interior space could be the real attention grabber when the facility opens in late December.

Mercy Clinics Inc. is combining two Indianola clinics into one and establishing a pattern for patient care that is in use at its recently opened clinic in Ankeny’s Prairie Trail development.

Called the “Boca” model – named after Boca Raton, Fla., where it was developed – the layout creates pods where each physician will have examination rooms and staff, including nurses and schedulers, according to the Aug. 5 issue of the Bulletin, Mercy Medical Center’s newsletter.

Patients can make telephone calls directly to each pod to schedule appointments or reach a nurse in case their prescriptions need to be refilled.

Follow-up visits will be scheduled at the end of each appointment.

Rather than roam from one end of the clinic to the other to see patients, physicians will move between the exam rooms within their pods.

Tim Walpole of Summercrest Hills developer Three-Sixty Group said the clinic also will have more than the normal number of parking spaces, with 7.5 spaces for every 1,000 square feet of the structure. The standard is about 5 spaces per 1,000 square feet.

Walpole said the $4 million clinic, which will include an urgent care center, followed a design that focused on ease of use for patients.

The Boca model “improves the experience for patients, whose visits are streamlined and result in a more personalized patient-provider relationship,” according to the Bulletin newsletter.

Land is being prepared at Summercrest Hills for a 9,200-square-foot Iowa Health Physicians Indianola Family Medicine clinic. A YMCA is in the design stage, and the Vintage Hills Retirement Community, a 66-unit senior housing and assisted-living center, opened in 2010. Construction on a Theisen’s Inc. farm supply store is nearing completion.

Randy Bray of West Des Moines-based Three-Sixty Group said plans will be presented soon for a multiple-tenant building at the development. Downing Construction Inc. of Indianola is the construction manager for Summercrest Hills.