Providence Health Care, the Spokane-based medical network, has started construction of a $58 million medical center that will expand its outpatient services greatly in Spokane Valley.

The 127,000-square-foot facility will be located on 11 acres of land at 16528 E. Desmet Court, which Providence bought last year for $4.6 million.

The center, to be called Providence Medical Park-Spokane Valley, will have a connected pair of buildings, Providence says. Diagnostic and treatment services will occupy a two-story building, and primary- and specialty-care physician offices will take up a three-story building.

Services to be provided there will include urgent care, imaging, outpatient surgery, on-site lab work, and a pharmacy, Providence says.

The construction cost is estimated at $44 million, and equipment costs will add another $14 million to the project, says Anne McKeon, a Providence spokeswoman.

Bouten Construction Co., of Spokane, is the contractor on the project, and Mahlum, a Seattle-based architectural firm, designed it.

Providence Medical Park is expected to open in the spring of 2014.

McKeon declines to estimate how many people will be employed there, but the project will provide work for more than 300 people during its construction.

The project site is on the north side of Interstate 90, near Sullivan Road and Indiana Avenue, a few blocks southeast of the 250,000-square-foot River View Corporate Center.

The medical center will increase substantially Providence's holdings in Spokane Valley. Its main presence there currently is Providence Valley Family Physicians, a small medical practice that operates a clinic at 12509 E. Mission. That clinic is just north of Valley Hospital, which is operated by Rockwood Health System, Providence's largest competitor here.

Providence Health Care, a member of Renton-based nonprofit Providence Health & Services, operates Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center & Children's Hospital, Providence Holy Family Hospital, and a number of other health-care facilities and services in Eastern Washington.

Rockwood Health System, the Spokane-based for-profit unit of Franklin, Tenn.-based Community Health Systems Inc., operates Valley Hospital, Deaconess Hospital, and Rockwood Clinic PS, a multispecialty practice with clinics throughout the Spokane area.