Clinic-in-a-mall opens in Exton

Main Line Health, the company that runs Lankenau, Bryn Mawr. Paoli and Riddle hospitals in Philadelphia's wealthy western suburbs, has opened its fourth satellite clinic, a 32,000 sq ft site at the Exton Square Mall. With family doctors, heart and cancer specialists (gyno, orthopedics, rheumatology, podiatry later this year), and testing, chemotherapy, radiology and MRI next door to shopping and fast food, it's "the future of medicine," Main Line chief executive Jack Lynch said in a statement. Valet parking, evening hours. Similar-sized freestanding clinics in Broomall, Collegeville, and next to the SAP (and, soon, Sunoco) HQ in Newtown Square.

Under boss Joseph F. Coradino, Exton Square  owner Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust (PREIT) has sought new uses for aging malls. There's a Mercy Care clinic at PREIT's Plymouth Meeting Mall (corrected -- not Willow Grove).  The company persuaded voters in previously-dry Moorestown to allow restaurants serving alcohol at Moorestown Mall, and put a temporary flea market in Philadlephia's Gallery during the Christmas shopping season. Though Coradino has yet to make good to land a big fancy anchor department store -- or else a lot of new chain stores -- for the Gallery as he maneuvers to expel Kmart when its lease runs out this summer. The company had previously sought to put a casino there.