Health Care: New facilities for Virginia’s health systems

For Virginia’s health care landscape, the last 12 months were a time of growth. Some health systems opened new facilities, while others got started on projects designed to serve the patients of tomorrow.

Other big news from last year: the summer opening of the Macon & Joan Brock Virginia Health Sciences at Old Dominion University, which includes the Eastern Virginia Medical School. It’s billed as the largest academic health center in the state and should boost the commonwealth’s health care workforce.

First, let’s don our hard hats.

In September 2024, Falls Church-based Inova Health System broke ground on two new hospitals — one in Alexandria and the other in Springfield. Combined, the two projects are expected to cost more than $2 billion.

Inova Franconia-Springfield will be a 110-bed facility and will offer emergency care, surgical services and inpatient care. Located at the site of the former Landmark Mall, Inova Alexandria will replace the existing Alexandria Hospital, which opened in 1962. In addition to a 192-bed hospital, the new Alexandria campus will include a cancer center, medical office building and a garage. They’re both set to be completed in 2028.

In October 2024, Inova opened the Inova Health Center – Oakville, which is located near Potomac Yard and offers an emergency department, outpatient surgery, imaging and doctors’ offices.

In Hampton Roads, Chesapeake Regional Healthcare, which serves patients in southeast Virginia and northeast North Carolina, received a $3.7 million state grant in June 2024 to create an inpatient psychiatric program at its Chesapeake Regional Medical Center. That facility is expected to open in March, according to a spokesperson.

Maryland-based Bon Secours, meanwhile, continues work on its $80 million Harbour View Medical Center in Suffolk, a three-story addition adjoining the existing Bon Secours Health Center at Harbour View campus. It’s slated to open in the second quarter of 2025.

Other Bon Secours developments: the health system completed the $108 million, 55-bed renovation and expansion project at Bon Secours St. Francis Medical Center in Chesterfield County in May 2024, and in February announced the $370 million expansion of St. Mary’s Hospital in Henrico County, including a six-story tower.

Lynchburg-based Centra Health and affiliates of Lifepoint Health, a Tennessee-based health care provider, in September 2024 broke ground on the Centra Simons Run Medical Campus. The development, which is part of a $500 million modernization plan by Centra announced in 2023, will house two hospitals: one dedicated to behavioral health and the other to rehabilitation services.

In Southern Virginia, Sentara Health broke ground in October 2024 on a $107 million, 42-bed acute care hospital in South Boston. It will replace the current Sentara Halifax Regional Hospital, which was built in 1953. The new facility is expected to be completed in 2026.

The same month in Roanoke, Carilion Clinic broke ground on the six-story Carilion Taubman Cancer Center. At the time, Carilion had raised $74 million toward the $100 million fundraising goal for the center, which is expected to open in 2027.

The Lewis Gale Hospital Montgomery Christiansburg ER, part of the HCA Health-care network, opened in late October 2024. The freestanding emergency room took a $14 million investment, according to an HCA official.

In September 2024, the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia approved the creation of the Joint School of Public Health, a combined effort by ODU and Norfolk State that is housed at ODU.

Meanwhile, Virginia’s medical research organizations, which receive $650 million annually in federal grants, are keeping watch on proposed funding caps by the Trump White House. Virginia Tech President Tim Sands warned in a February letter that NIH cuts could have a $13 million impact on Tech’s annual research budget.