A community health care center serving some of the state's most disadvantaged patients is getting an upgrade.

Zufall Health will soon be welcoming people at a new location in West Orange.

The operators say it will help them better care for their roughly 45,000 medical and dental patients.

As Ted Goldberg reports, the expanded new space is highlighting the critical role of nonprofit medical centers at a time when federal funding for them hangs in the balance.

It's just unbelievable.

Exceeds my wildest expectations.

Dr. Robert Zufall is amazed by the new building for the Community Health Center bearing his name.

I just can't believe it.

It's blown away.

This is the phrase I would use.

Former Zufall president Eva Turbiner says the new building will help doctors take better care of their patients.

More than half of whom don't have insurance.

Most of them are either on Medicaid, Medicare or NJ family care.

That's what we really always want to convey to our patients is, you know, you may not have insurance, you may be treated disrespectfully in many other areas of your life, but you will always be treated respectfully.

Here, the new building is a better fit for Zufall's 45,000 patients.

Our first year was seven years ago when a small shop we did 1900 patients and 5000 visits.

This year we've had 5000 visitors and 5000 patients and 17,000 visits.

Those numbers are coming.

Out of that space.

Can you imagine?

Dr. Zufall's mission will continue in this glorious space.

Dr. Zufall says the $10 million project in West Orange is a far cry from the first office.

He worked in.

Single room with a curtain so you could put the patient on the other side of the curtain.

And so this is a little shinier, a little brighter wouldn't you say?

A lot.

Vastly, vastly.

The building is about a month away from accepting patients, but Zufall Health is ready to move out of its old digs, which employees say wasn't too much better than Dr. Zufall's first office.

We're just suffered through for a couple of years, and then we'll have a new building somewhere else will move, will be fine.

And then we got the funding.

The space is more than just bright and shiny.

Dental suites are just about finished and the rest of the community health center isn't far behind.

To have something beautiful and new and you'll see everything here.

State of the art audio design.

The building that is is sunny and happy and and welcoming.

This facility will allow us to double our medical capacity.

It will triple our dental capacity, and it will bring all of our West Orange.

We actually have multiple locations in West Orange because there wasn't enough room all under one roof, which will be really great for the team.

While Zufall Health had a lot of people to thank, they also acknowledged some of the obstacles that led to long delays for the building to open.

I have a no thanks to bureaucracy and the pandemic for having this delay.

This process make it much more costly than we originally had planned, But we've gotten over those hurdles and we're we're better off for it.

Zufall expects the larger building to lead to more patients.

They project a 48% increase for year one.

In West Orange.

I'm Ted Goldberg.

NJ Spotlight News.