Lowcountry providers making big changes downtown and big investments in
Charleston’s downtown Medical District will see a seismic change in coming years as Roper Hospital prepares to move and Medical University of South Carolina looks to transform the properties. But Roper St. Francis Healthcare System will maintain a presence on the peninsula, perhaps just across Calhoun Street. And other big systems like Trident Health are in the midst of major investments as providers strive to meet the needs of an ever-growing population.
Nearly a quarter of the state’s physicians call the Charleston area home and some of the state’s largest health systems are here. All of them are adding to their offerings in the future. The largest and most visible move will be Roper Hospital, which has served the downtown area since the 1850s, moving to a “state of the art new hospital on a campus that is unbridled by most of the climate issues we have downtown,” said Dr. Megan Baker, the Chief Operating Officer for Roper St. Francis. That move is expected by late 2029. But even after that Roper will still have services downtown, perhaps clinics and imaging, as it would for any other neighborhood in the Lowcountry.
“We are going to make sure that we have areas that are convenient for peninsula residents,” Baker said. Roper St. Francis owns property on Calhoun across from the current hospital that might be suitable for future outpatient services, she said.
MUSC is studying what would be “the best and highest purpose” for the Roper properties it would acquire in the sale, which includes the 900,000-square-foot hospital and an office building parcel, said MUSC President David J. Cole. MUSC has for the last 20 years been in the process of replacing its clinical facilities and will have a few years to plan this latest move. The idea is to create “a future-leaning health care delivery downtown Charleston footprint,” Cole said.
But part of that will also be an innovation corridor, the first piece of which will open this month on Calhoun Street just down from the Roper property, where it will offer lab space for start-up companies.
Outside downtown, MUSC is moving forward on a 70-bed hospital in Nexton that will also include a 30,000-sqaure-foot office building that will help provide more specialty care.
Trident Health is in the midst of $300 million in capital investments in the Lowcounty, said President Jeff Wilson. This year, Trident will begin construction on two new free-standing Emergency Departments. One will be on Johns Island, on a campus where Trident plans to build a hospital in the future. The other will be in Mount Pleasant off Long Point Road, on 7 acres near the Belle Hall Shopping Center, Wilson said.
Part of what Trident and the other health systems are doing is just driven by demand, he said.
“I recognize the growth trajectory that Charleston has been on for many years and there is absolutely a need for expanded access to care and expanded access to new technologies, innovative services, and cutting edge health care,” Wilson said. “From that standpoint, we all are pursuing that in our unique ways and that will be to the betterment of the citizens of the Charleston metropolitan area.”
