By Teresa Woodard
March 31, 2009

ST. LOUIS, MO (KTVI-FOX2now.com) - Apparently, there is at least one new business that can open to instant success in this struggling economy. It is a business that gives the thousands of people who live in downtown St. Louis access to something they've never had. Now, no matter where you are downtown, there is a doctor offering fast affordable health care right around the corner.

You could call Dr. Sonny Saggar "Dr. Downtown".

"Really I'm just trying to fill a void downtown and give people what they want."

He wants to help people. The people he sees want fast, affordable care. He says his typical clients will probably be young professionals and baby boomers.

"People who want to live downtown, they want to work downtown," he says. "They don't want to venture too far to go see somebody about a strep throat or sprained ankle, or you cut your thumb or something. And you just want to get it quickly fixed up. In and out in 20 mintues, not sacrifice your work day. The product we're selling is access. That's really what they want."

While the sirens that echo through downtown day and night will never be silenced, Tuesday something almost overpowered them: applause.

The ribbon cutting at 916 Olive came with plenty of it, and lots of praise, from St. Louis Fire Chief Dennis Jenkerson.

"It's gonna be a fantastic alternative for us," he says.

Saggar's Downtown Urgent Care houses six exam rooms, a radiology department, and a lab. It is a full scale urgent clinic. It opened two weeks ago and has already seen 60 patients, most with insurance, most who live downtown, says Saggar.

"An urgent care will always be cheaper than an ER, whether you've got insurance, whether in network, out of network, or whether you have no insurance at all. We're always gonna be cheaper," he says.

Two of those patients who have come into the clinic needed critical care. "We had a heart attack patient, says Saggar. "We immediately dispatched him to Barnes. And we had another patient with crushing chest pains and we sent her to the ER. We do get people who need to go to the hospital. It's not like we're going to stop them. But we act like a front line for the ER, triaging those who need to go the hospital and those who don't."

That takes some of the burden off Jenkerson's EMS department.

"It's just gonna shed a better light on downtown. People who visit here or live here, if they're feeling bad, or they've got the flu, whatever the case may be, rather than running them in an ambulance to a hospital because they don't know anything else, we can direct them over here," he says. "It gives people an alternative."

The Downtown Partnership released a study Monday saying its population rose by six percent in 2008. An estimated 11,800 people now live downtown. New parks are opening up in the coming months. So is the first Schnuck's Grocery Store.

"It's got much more of a village mentality," says Saggar. "You can pop into that street or to the grocery store, or the doctor's office now or to the book store, and you never have to get in your car."