Centra’s $600M+ capital upgrades include new hospital tower

What’s expected to be a three-year, $400 million construction project is underway at Centra Lynchburg General Hospital (LGH).

A new six-story tower will add 266,200 square feet to the hospital and marks the biggest portion of more than $600 million in recent capital investments by Centra Health, a regional nonprofit health system serving more than 500,000 patients in Central and Southern Virginia.

“This investment will serve the region for the long term,” Centra President and CEO Richard Tugman said in a statement about the tower’s September 2025 groundbreaking.

Patient care at LGH will not be interrupted by construction of the tower, which is expected to be completed in fall 2028, Centra Health spokesperson Lauren Byrum stated via email. It’s too early to announce whether Centra will hire new health care providers due to the addition, according to Byrum.

Designed by Kahler Slater, a Wisconsin architecture firm with an office in Richmond, the tower will feature a new emergency department with more than 70 treatment spaces and an EmPATH Unit, a space for treating patients experiencing psychiatric crises. The tower will also offer 12 operating rooms and postsurgery patient recovery rooms.

In 2023, Centra Health launched a modernization plan that led to Lynchburg-based health system embarking on the biggest slate of capital investments in its nearly 40-year history.

Based on priorities identified during Centra’s 2021 and 2024 community health needs assessments, the plan also spawned the $100 million Centra Langhorne Medical Center, a five-story, 130,000-square-foot medical office building that opened in December 2025. Located in Lynchburg, the center houses outpatient specialties such as pulmonology and neurosurgery.

Additionally, the modernization plan called for the creation of the $106 million Centra Simons Run Medical Campus, expected to open this spring. Located across the border of Lynchburg and Campbell County, the campus will house behavioral health and rehabilitation care services currently provided at Centra Virginia Baptist Hospital. Affiliates of Tennessee-based Lifepoint Health will manage the campus’ day-to-day operations.

Marjette Upshur, Lynchburg’s director of economic development, called Centra Health’s modernization plan “a transformational investment in Lynchburg’s health and economy.”

The new and expanded facilities “not only expand access to world-class care,” Upshur wrote in an email. “They also create hundreds of construction and health care jobs, drive local spending and [will] strengthen our city’s fiscal base for years to come.”

Associate Editor Beth JoJack contributed to this article.