A new 8,950-square-foot medical office building for a DaVita Dialysis clinic has been approved by the Ceres Planning Commission.

RAN Health Services of Modesto went before the commission on Monday to seek approval a Site Plan Approval (SPA) for the project which he proposes to be constructed at 1424 E. Whitmore Avenue west of Highway 99.

The project is planned on a 1.29-acre site zoned Community Commercial and located south of Whitmore Avenue, just west of the Rockefeller Drive.

The property had been approved for an office building on July 17, 2006, however the project was shelved and approval expired as the result of a downturned economy. Because the project expired in 2008, the proponents came back for a new approval as the dialysis center.

The dialysis clinic is expected to operate with a maximum of 12 employees, Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. or from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m., with truck deliveries being made to the site approximately once per week.
City planning staff supported the project since it is filling a vacant lot and "improves the balance of commercial businesses that already exist within Ceres."

DaVita is the dialysis division of DaVita HealthCare Partners Inc., a Fortune 500 company that provides a variety of health care services to patient populations throughout the United States and abroad. A leading provider of kidney care in the United States, DaVita delivers dialysis services to patients with chronic kidney failure and end stage renal disease. As of Dec. 31, 2013, DaVita operated or provided administrative services at 2,074 outpatient dialysis centers located in the United States serving approximately 163,000 patients.

Dialysis is the artificial process of eliminating waste (diffusion) and unwanted water (ultrafiltration) from the blood. Human kidneys do this naturally however some people may have failed or damaged kidneys which cannot carry out the function properly and may need dialysis.