Local dentist flips vacant building into state-of-the-art new office

Smiles seem to stretch from ear to ear on the faces of Dr. Ryan Frost, his staff, patients, and all who enter into Greenfield Family Dentistry’s new location on the northwest corner of the Greenfield Public Square.

The dental practice’s new 7,500 square feet facility, which is right west of its old digs, opened recently. A new sign was expected to be delivered and put up this week.

Frost took over the practice of Dr. Verlin Hockett in July 2018. In January 2021, he purchased the other practice in town, most notably ran by Dr. Richard Kohler, then more recently by Dr. Taylor Schroeder of Atlantic and Dr. Kathryn Handtke.

This expansion in number of patients begged for more room, Frost said.

The building Greenfield Family Dentistry has renovated was owned by Greater Regional Health of Creston, who once had a plan of starting a medical clinic there. Frost was able to strike a deal with GRH, allowing for the purchase and development of the building for his practice.

“With as much as we grew patient-wise, being able to accommodate more people and have enough space for staff to move around without us tripping over each other, it was time to have more treatment rooms,” Frost said.

The new space increased Greenfield Family Dentistry’s capacity to 11 treatment rooms. It also gave opportunity for expansion of technology. One such example is a 3D x-ray machine that enhances the ability to place implants and diagnose.

The time it takes to get patients in was also an important thing for Frost.

“We want to be able to get people in for same-day emergencies, such as a broken tooth, infected gum tissue, a tooth that needs pulled or a root canal. Usually it’s pain or some type of infection. That was a big priority for us,” he said.

Several structural issues had to be addressed in the new building, like a leaky roof.

Cardinal IG of Greenfield donated all of the glass for the new office. Frost feels the facility benefits greatly from a lot of natural light.

Greenfield Municipal Utilities helped Greenfield Family Dentistry to get a 10-year, 0% interest loan through the Iowa Area Development Group and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, another big benefit to the about $2 million project.

Construction took seven or eight months, then there was a period of time when industry experts came in to install the dental equipment.

In all that was done, Frost said it was important to keep the integrity of Greenfield’s culture and style shown on the Public Square at the forefront of everything.

“When we were looking for locations, my priority was that if we could stay on the square, I’d love to do it,” Frost said. “For one, I want to support Greenfield as much as possible, and getting people onto the square benefits the community. It’s so neat to hear people say that I was here when it was a grocery store or I was here when it was a t-shirt shop. I love those stories.

“Keeping with that, we didn’t want to make this extremely modern and out of place with the square,” Frost added. “The exposed brick and some photos of the more historic Greenfield square that we’re getting from the Sidey Collection, I’m so excited. It’s been a fun project to do.”

Hockett and Kohler have been very helpful in this project and since he began practicing here.

Frost and his wife, Jillian, live in Waukee. She is a speech language pathologist in Des Moines.

“I think that sometime the feeling in small towns is that you don’t have to do something brand new, but small towns deserve really quality dental and health care too. There’s no reason not to invest,” Frost said. “I hope that other people are willing to continue to invest in the community too.”