
NEW HANOVER COUNTY — The shovels were raised and soil punctured as Novant Health officials gathered in Scotts Hill Wednesday to break ground on a 60-bed hospital in the works for a few years now.
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The proposed Scotts Hill Medical Center — a $200-plus-million project — will consist of a 66-bed hospital, medical and dental office, business space and a heliport. It straddles the line of Pender and New Hanover counties and U.S. Highway 17.
The 60,000-square-foot medical office building will include outpatient care services and become a new hub for Novant Health Cancer Institute. It also will have cardiac rehabilitation, outpatient rehabilitation services — physical, occupational and speech therapies — laboratory services, surgical navigation and Novant’s primary care and specialty care providers.
Site work is underway on the facility, and Novant expects construction to begin this summer for the future 200,000-square-foot Scotts Hill Medical Center. The medical center will focus on surgeries, with state-of-the-art operating and procedure rooms, as well as focused areas for gastroenterology and endoscopy.
“We’ve been intentionally working on these plans so we can be sure these facilities will meet our growing community’s needs,” Laurie Whalin, who will serve as president of Scotts Hill Medical Center and is chief operating officer for Novant Health New Hanover Regional Medical Center, said in a press release.
Already, Novant Health has an emergency department located in Scotts Hill. It will connect to the future hospital and the outpatient surgery center.
Officials expect the office building construction to take more than a year, while the new hospital should be complete in two-and-a-half years, pending limited impact due to weather or supply-chain issues.
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