Atrium Health breaks ground on $900 million tower in midtown. What you need to know

Atrium Health’s midtown flagship campus, Carolinas Medical Center, is getting a $900 million, 1.1-million-square-foot advanced care facility. Groundbreaking for the project was held Wednesday.

The new tower is the latest project in Atrium’s ongoing redesign for updating its campus on Blythe Road, according to a news release. The Charlotte-based non-profit hospital network employs 70,000 people and is the region’s only Level I trauma center.

Here are five things to know about the new facility:

▪ The project will take five years to complete and will open in 2027.

▪ Atrium said its goal is to channel 30% of the project’s capital spending to women, minority or veteran-owned construction businesses.

▪ The facility will have 448 patient rooms, 38 operating rooms and 16 procedure rooms. It also will have dedicated space on each floor for employee health and well-being, the hospital system said.

▪ Instead of having an emergency department where nurses and doctors are assigned specific patients, that department in the new facility will feature a more modern “pod” style. This will assign healthcare workers to rooms of several beds, which optimizes flow and increases speed of access to care, according to Atrium Health.

▪ This 12-story tower is planned to be the largest structure at the flagship campus and add to the city skyline, said Ken Haynes, president of the southeast region for Advocate Health, which combined with Atrium Health in December. That created the country’s fifth largest hospital system.

“This new expansion to Atrium Health Carolinas Medical Center will tremendously improve both the patient and caregiver experience,” said Dr. Dan Handel, vice president and chief medical officer for Atrium Health’s central area.

The total capital cost for Atrium Health’s master plan is $1.4 billion, which was approved in 2018. This money has also gone towards projects like the new Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Charlotte’s first four-year medical school, expected to open next year.

The Carolinas Medical Center campus also recently opened a $100 million project, the David L. Conlan Rehabilitation Center. The center broke ground in 2020, with 72 beds and a goal to take strain off of other hospitals in the region, Atrium Administrator Todd Bennett told the Charlotte Business Journal.