A water truck sprays down the temporary driveway in front of Andrew Ross’s dental office
in Delray Beach. Inside the building (below), it is business as usual.
Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star
By Tim Pallesen
Dentist Andrew Ross is as difficult to extract as an embedded molar.
So his 32-year dental office remains open despite construction of the giant Delray Place shopping center around him at the foot of the Linton Boulevard Bridge.
Ross was the only tenant with a lease when all other buildings in the previous shopping center at the southeast corner of Linton and Federal Highway got demolished last year.
He refused to leave, so the new 130,000-square-foot shopping center that will be home to Trader Joe’s is being built around his little 1,600-square-foot dental office.
“As awful as it seems, it has worked out very well,” Ross said. “My patients are loyal. Once they’re inside the building, they don’t know what’s happening outside.”
Delray Place developer Joe Carosella failed to get Ross to leave when they met to talk last summer. Ross’ lease extends to June 2017.
Carosella declined comment for this story, but Ross quotes him as saying: “I know you have a lease, but you are in my way.”
Ross wouldn’t budge. “At this point in my life, I wasn’t about to build a new dental office,” he said.
So bulldozers and cranes cause a storm around him. Dental patients have their own little access road and Ross says a friendly construction manager helps him keep his dental office open for business.
Ross also has been blessed by new walk-in clients.
“I’ve always had good exposure as people cross over the bridge — now I’m more visible than ever,” he said. “I’m anything but angry about this.”
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