Pacific Radiology will operate the service in a temporary building on a greenfield site next to SITE Trampoline in Red Oaks Dr.
It will run alongside a new mammography service operated by BreastScreen Otago Southland.
Pacific Radiology managing director for Otago-Southland Dr James Fulton said the MRI service would be available to people throughout the Queenstown Lakes and Central Otago areas.
At present, patients needing scans had to travel to the Southland District Health Board's base hospitals, or sometimes even Christchurch.
Although a private operator, Pacific Radiology was keen to provide an MRI service for the DHB in Queenstown, as it did in other centres.
''We want to be up and running before we think about that, but it would be perfectly feasible for us to do contract work.''
It had planned to open the facility a few months ago, but the consenting process had caused delays.
A resource consent for the temporary facility, consisting of three connected Portacom buildings, had now been granted, and a building consent was not far away, he said.
The facility would be operated by up to six staff, with a radiologist on site for six days a fortnight initially.
Dr Fulton said the temporary building was ''not an architectural masterpiece'', but it planned to move into a new building as soon it was available.
Pacific Radiology is the anchor tenant of a $30 million private medical facility, planned for an adjacent site in Hawthorne Dr, that was announced by Remarkables Park Ltd (RPL) and Skin Institute Queenstown in January.
The Otago Daily Times reported on Monday that BreastScreen Otago Southland would run its national mammography screening service at the temporary facility.
It will operate throughout the year, rather than for 10 weeks every two years as was the case for its mobile mammography unit.
It also plans to move into the new complex when it is completed.
Meanwhile, one of the backers of the $30 million private facility says it expects to release more information about the project in about a month.
Construction of the four-storey, 6000sq m building, which is a joint venture with an unnamed private hospital provider, was expected to start late this year or early next year.
RPL corporate affairs manager Lisa Nilsen said that timeframe was still possible, and discussions among the project's partners were at an ''advanced stage''.
