Midwest Dental Arts: A Dream Lab and CE Center in Florida

In 2018, Jamey Schropp—Owner of Midwest Dental Arts with four locations* across the U.S.—was fed up with his 5,200-square-foot lab in Melbourne, FL: even with air conditioning it was too hot throughout much of the year and his staff had grown, making the space very cramped. Since Schropp already had experience building one lab from the ground up, he decided it was time to build again and, this time, it would be his dream lab.

After finding a five-acre lot in Palm Bay, FL, securing financing, working with an architect and engineer, and completing the year-long process of getting his permits approved, the lab broke ground in the fall of 2019. One of the biggest challenges of the construction process was re-grading the lot by three feet to take it out of a flood plain. “It took about three weeks, 1,000 dump truck loads and $380,000 worth of dirt to get the job done,” recalls Schropp.

By early 2020, construction was well underway—the...