Up to 40 surgeries per day will be performed in Scarborough in the coming year when Maine Medical Center opens its multi-million-dollar Scarborough Surgery Center next week.

The free-standing facility is Maine Medical Center’s latest addition to Scarborough. With 10 operating rooms, Kevin McGovern, associate vice president of surgical services, said the 58,000-square-foot building is one the largest of its kind in the country.

On Wednesday at 10 a.m., a ribbon-cutting ceremony and open house will mark its completion. Though the new building will mostly accommodate day surgeries for people of southern Maine, there will also be six rooms for patients who need to stay over one night. Surgeries are expected to start at the end of the month, ahead of its scheduled October opening. McGovern said the $27 million project was also slightly under budget.

McGovern said easy access to the site just off Route 1, as well as its serene setting made Scarborough an optimal location for the surgical center.

“The setting is outstanding,” he said of the building, which is situated in the woods next to Maine Medical Center Research Institute. Providing countless services in town, from the cardiac rehabilitation program to the cancer center, Maine Medical Center has already established its presence in Scarborough.

“It’s been good for that section of Route 1 in terms of spin-off development,” said Town Planner Dan Bacon.

According to Bacon, the town is looking to rezone the north end of Route 1, from the Hillcrest Retirement Community to the South Portland border. He said the new zone, which will be proposed to the town council this fall, will limit development to medical office, research and bio-tech uses, directing commercial development, like large retail stores, fast-food restaurants and gas stations, away from the area.

Harvey Rosenfeld, president of Scarborough Economic Development Corp., said the advantage to having these services in Scarborough is to offset housing development and to provide more, high-quality jobs.

“The answer to affordable housing is better jobs and higher salaries,” Rosenfeld said. “Those jobs tend to pay better.”

According to McGovern, more than 100 employees will occupy the center with many more surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses and physician’s assistants coming in and out of the building every day. Though many employees will move to Scarborough from the existing Maine Medical campuses, the new building will create more jobs for nurses, security staff and housekeeping.

Though not all of the operating rooms will open right away, 8,000 surgeries are expected to be performed at the new center during the first year. According to Diane Fecteau, executive director of Scarborough Surgery Center, types of surgeries to be performed will include gynecological procedures, as well as operations on hernias, gall bladders, eyes and feet.

The need for the new building came from overcrowding at Maine Medical Center’s Brighton and Bramhall campuses. The five operating rooms at the Brighton campus, where day surgeries were primarily performed, will be shut down, and the Bramhall campus will be able to better serve patients in need of more urgent care, according to hospital officials.

McGovern said most free-standing surgery centers have three or four operating rooms. A total of 10 rooms, he said, is unusual.

“It’s a very prestigious thing to have in town,” Rosenfeld said.

Project manager Nancy Innes shows off the state-of-the-art operating room equipment to Maine Medical Center employees Martha Davoli, public affairs director, and ???, medical photographer on a tour of the new Scarborough Surgical Center Friday. The public will be invited to walk through the building after a ribbon cutting on Wednesday.Virtual patients, Armand and Jospephine, stroll through the waiting area at Maine Medical’s new surgery center in Scarborough.Maine Med opens surgery center in Scarborough