BUFFALO, N.Y. — Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center broke ground Wednesday at the site of a new community outreach and engagement facility at 907 Michigan Avenue.

Nikia Clark, Roswell’s senior community outreach and engagement manager, said the facility is just outside of the main campus intentionally.

“Because Roswell can still be a scary place,” she said. “It can be. It’s a huge place, and this kind of consolidates it and it’s welcoming. What’s better than walking into a home?”

The one-acre lot will be home to a newly-renovated 19th century home and 3,100 sq. ft. of office and meeting space, as well as a garden. The outreach team is currently spread out throughout the cancer center’s campus. This plan puts them under one roof and will offer cancer risk assessment screenings, classes on lowering cancer risk and serve as a hub in the Fruit Belt neighborhood for community resources.

“Our African American, Hispanic communities and indigenous communities are seeing still an increase in incidents and mortality rates. So we’re being diagnosed from it more and dying from it more,” said Clark.

She added that helping people of color and those affected by health disparities is something she takes personally.

“Just looking at people [who] look like me die from cancer or being diagnosed with cancer,” said Clark. “And when you peel back the layers of their stories, it’s that they either didn’t feel supported or they didn’t have the resources or they didn’t have the access to get the care that they deserved and needed.”

The building is set to open sometime in 2023.