With a ceremonial groundbreaking ceremony set for Tuesday, Suburban Hospital has released some new renderings from its expansion plans.
The estimated $225 million expansion will include a new garage and surface parking lot, plus a new clinical center too add capacity and improve traffic flow at the 70-year-old facility on Old Georgetown Road:
When completed, the 300,000-square-foot enhancement will feature a sustainable green design built around the needs of the patients. All new patient rooms will be private for greater comfort and improved infection control and designed around the patient and family. Also featured are up-to- date operating rooms that are sized and designed to accommodate innovations in surgical care technology, such as MRI and robotics, while maintaining flexibility for the future. In addition to providing a unified campus with a new main entrance and lobby separate from the emergency and trauma entrance and helipad at the existing hospital building, the footprint will include landscaped gardens and other spaces for healing and respite. It also will include medical office space for specialty physicians.
The hospital bought homes along neighboring Lincoln Street to make way for the new facility. A zoning approval by the county’s Board of Appeals led to a years-long legal fight from the Huntington Terrace Citizens Association, which argued the abandonment of Lincoln Street and the new garage will lead to more noise and traffic.
The project is being funded with hospital reserves, tax-exempt bonds and private donations. Fundraising is ongoing.
Last year, Suburban got $2.5 million for a new emergency room from the foundation of Bethesda philanthropists Sondra and Howard Bender. On Tuesday, the hospital will hold a special ceremony dedicating the emergency/trauma center from 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m., just before the groundbreaking ceremony.
The new parking garage part of the expansion project is set to open in 2017 and the new building is set to open in the fall of 2019 to coincide with the hospital’s 75th anniversary.
Photos via Suburban Hospital
