As it reaches 20 years in operation, Jacksonville Spine & Pain Centers appears to be expanding with another location.
Viper Ventures LLC, a group of doctors from Jacksonville Spine & Pain Centers, purchased a 9.68-acre property at northeast Butler and Kernan boulevards for $2.35 million.
Site plans show a proposed three-story, 54,000-square-foot building on the property. Plans include a 280-space parking lot.
Viper Ventures purchased the property Sept. 10 from the Skinner family.
Company spokeswoman Kimber McCafferty declined to comment about the property’s use or a timeline for construction. Steve Boron, Jacksonville Spine & Pain Centers practice administrator, also declined comment.
England-Thims & Miller is the project’s civil engineer.
The property is across Butler Boulevard from Fuqua Development’s proposed 67-acre, $300 million project at southeast Butler Boulevard and Interstate 295.
Mark Patrick, with Patrick & Raines CPAs, is the registered agent of Viper Ventures LLC, according to the Florida Division of Corporations.
Christopher Roberts, founder of Jacksonville Spine and Pain Centers, along with Claudio Vincenty, John Carey and Michael Hanes – three doctors at Jacksonville Spine & Pain Centers – are listed as managers of the LLC.
Viper Ventures’ listed address is 10475 Centurion Parkway, the location of one of Jacksonville Spine & Pain Centers’ four offices.
It also has offices in North Jacksonville, Fleming Island and St. Augustine. According to a release about the company’s 20th anniversary, it is planning a fifth location in South Georgia.
Jacksonville Spine & Pain Centers provides interventional relief for back, neck, shoulder, knee, hip and chronic pain.
It was founded in November 1999 by three physicians in a single office in South Jacksonville. It now has seven physicians.
Roberts founded the practice and quickly brought in Vincenty and Carey. Roberts and Carey trained together at Mayo Clinic.
Roberts said in a news release that when he came to Jacksonville, there were pain management practices, but none that offered what he thought was essential to cure neck or back pain. He said pain is a symptom, not a diagnosis.
“Our goal is to listen to patients in order to make a correct diagnosis, to identify what the source of their problem is, and then to use interventional techniques to treat the problem,” he said.
Interventional techniques include the use of regenerative cells, often from bone marrow, to rebuild the body’s natural repair processes; neuromodulation to alter pain signals; and the use of pain pumps to deliver small doses of medicine at the location where needed.
In 2015, Roberts brought in management consultants Boron and Mike Bergantino, who joined as practice administrators.
Boron said in the release that Jacksonville Spine & Pain Centers grew from a staff of 50 to 115 people and that its structure “can take us to 300 or 400 staff members.”
The practice added Hanes and Dr. Hares Akbary, younger partners that Bergantino said will help drive growth.
