Bon Secours plans $370M expansion of Henrico hospital

Bon Secours Mercy Health plans to break ground this summer on a $370 million renovation and expansion of Bon Secours St. Mary’s Hospital in western Henrico County, the hospital’s president said Friday.

“Since the hospital opened in 1966, this is the most transformative project that we’ve taken on,” Bryan Lee said in an interview with Virginia Business.

An addition of an eight-story tower will provide about 200,000 additional square feet to St. Mary’s, at 5801 Bremo Road, close to the Richmond city line. Work on the tower should begin in the fall, and it’s expected to open in late 2027 or early 2028.

Once the tower is complete, workers will move to renovate space in the current hospital. The project will have three sources of funding.

“There’s Bon Secours Mercy Health, our parent company, the strategic capital that they deploy,” Lee said. “There are the bonds that are out there. We requested $600 million in bonds from the state of Virginia to be used between Richmond and Hampton Roads. And then, the third piece is a capital campaign that we will launch this summer, and we’re doing that in tandem with our groundbreaking.”

Two of the floors in the tower will be shell space used for future expansions. The helipad, which is currently located in a parking lot, will be moved to the top of the tower.

“These patients will move faster and directly to the level of care they need,” with the helipad on the tower, Lee said. “This will be a more efficient, direct pathway.”

The expansion will help the hospital serve a growing population, he added, and the health system anticipates the market could grow as much as 5% over the next five years.

St. Mary’s serves as Bon Secours Mercy Health’s tertiary and quaternary market hub, which means it offers highly specialized care for very sick patients. “Even today, our occupancy is over 80% for critical care beds,” Lee said.

Currently, St Mary’s has 391 beds, and that will not change with the expansion. However, patients will all have private rooms, whereas today the hospital includes a mix of private and shared spaces.

Bon Secours Mercy Health projects the expansion will create the need for 375 new positions. Currently, St. Mary’s Hospital has 2,500 employees, according to Lee.

DPR Construction, headquartered in California, is the project’s general contractor, and Perkins&Will of Chicago is the architecture firm handling design.

Bon Secours operates three hospitals and medical centers and one outpatient facility in Hampton Roads, and the Bon Secours Richmond Health System offers a network of seven acute hospitals, primary and specialty care practices, ambulatory care sites and continuing care facilities across a 24-locality region.