Inova breaks ground on Alexandria, Springfield hospitals

In late September, Inova Health System broke ground on two new hospitals — one in Alexandria and the other in Springfield, the start of a new phase for the Falls Church health system.

Both acute-care hospitals are expected to be completed in 2028, officials say. Inova Alexandria, which will sit on the former Landmark Mall site, will replace the existing Inova Alexandria Hospital, and Inova Franconia-Springfield will join Inova HealthPlex as the health system’s first hospital in Springfield.

The new hospitals aim to update Inova’s offerings to patients, says Heather Russell, Inova’s vice president for eastern region development.

“Our current Alexandria hospital … is out-of-date and needs to be replaced. [This project provides] us an opportunity to rightsize our facilities,” Russell says. “It has really provided us an opportunity to look at the future of health care delivery and standardize our processes.”

Combined, the two projects are expected to cost $2 billion and span more than 1.4 million square feet, with Alexandria’s facility measuring in at 838,000 square feet. Initially, neither of the hospitals will be designated as trauma centers, but Inova will likely pursue trauma certification in the future, according to Russell.

In addition to the new hospital, Alexandria’s Inova campus will include a new cancer center, medical office building and garage, taking up about half of the former Landmark Mall’s 52-acre lot, which the health system is leasing from the City of Alexandria.

The other half of the site is being developed by real estate developer Foulger Pratt into WestEnd Alexandria, a retail and residential community.

“[The hospital complex] will very much be a sort of town center with a medical theme, because you’re going to have this acute-care hospital and cancer center as the anchor,” says Stephanie Landrum, president and CEO of the Alexandria Economic Development Partnership.

Inova’s plans for Springfield are more straightforward. The health system purchased the site years earlier and is planning to include a hospital, medical office building and garage there, according to Tom McDuffie, president of Inova Realty, the health system’s real estate branch.

In November, Inova is also set to open a health center near Potomac Yard and National Landing, a facility that will include an emergency room, outpatient services, doctors’ offices and an ambulatory surgery center.