By URVAKSH KARKARIA, The Times-Union

A local dentist is investing about $1.7 million in a new medical building in the Julington Creek area.

The 8,500-square-foot building will include a 4,100-square-foot dentist office offering services like cosmetic dentistry, teeth-whitening in an hour, emergency dental care, root canal therapy and implant restoration, dentist Sam Hanania said. The remaining roughly 4,400-square-feet is available for lease to professionals such as physicians or dentists.

Hanania is relocating his practice having outgrown the current site, which is about a mile north. The location which will serve the Fruit Cove, Julington Creek, Mandarin, Ponte Vedra, Southside, and Switzerland areas, will be triple the size of the present site and be able to treat three times as many patients. Hanania's practice sees about 80 to 100 patients weekly. The dental office, scheduled to open in June, will provide laser diagnosis of tooth decay, radiation-reducing digital X-rays and nitrous oxide sedation among other services. There will also be luxuries -- flat LCD televisions and seven spa-like treatment rooms -- to improve comfort and ease patient anxiety, Hanania said. The treatment rooms will have soft background music and large windows overlooking a landscaped area. Facials and massages are also planned down the road.

Such creature comforts allow patients to relax and make the visit more enjoyable, Hanania said.

"We want our patients to experience more of the good things about coming to the dentist," he said.

The majority of patients do not have the technical knowledge to effectively judge a dental practice's quality of services, said T. Douglas Splane, a dentist in Avondale.

The two biggest factors that make a first impression on dental patients is the office decor and treatment from the staff, he said. However, it is the quality of work that will count more, in the long term, than decor or staff, Splane said.