8-story St. Mary’s expansion gets endorsement from Henrico Planning Commission

A rendering of the new critical care tower planned at St. Mary’s Hospital. (Courtesy Bon Secours)

A massive expansion of St. Mary’s Hospital took a step forward this week.

The Henrico Planning Commission on Thursday recommended approval of a zoning request tied to an eight-story critical care tower that Bon Secours wants to build at its hospital off Monument Avenue.

The 200,000-square-foot project would rise on an existing parking lot and patient drop-off area at the hospital’s main entrance that fronts Bremo Road.

Estimated to cost more than $300 million, the new tower is planned to feature six operating rooms and two catheterization labs among other facilities, along with 44 ICU beds and 31 bassinets.

The tower is expected to have six levels of active facilities when it opens. The project’s upper two floors would be built as shell space for future expansion. Bridges are planned on several levels to connect the new tower to the existing hospital.

Bon Secours is seeking a provisional use permit from Henrico to allow the building to be built to the desired height and to relocate the hospital’s helipad, which would be moved to the top of the new building. The helipad is currently situated in a parking lot, and the current pad would be converted to 55 parking spots.

The 0.8-acre site of the future tower is zoned Office (O-3), and is between two existing buildings of similar height on the St. Mary’s campus. Buildings in O-3 are allowed to be a maximum of 110 feet tall by right, and Bon Secours is seeking permission for a building height of 158 feet to accommodate an elevator shaft and other structures on top of the building, though the building itself would remain within the zoning district’s by-right range, according to a staff report.

A site plan of the new critical care tower proposed for the St. Mary’s campus. The planned new building is outlined in black at the top of the image. (County documents)

The request now heads to the Henrico Board of Supervisors for final approval.

St. Mary’s is a hub of higher level medical care for Bon Secours’ Richmond-area operations, and the project is intended to better position the 744,000-square-foot hospital, which is also a regional center for pediatrics and neonatal care, to operate in that role. The project is expected to nearly double the critical care capacity at St. Mary’s.

The tower would be part of an overall $370 million project at St. Mary’s, which Bon Secours announced earlier this year.

Upgrades included in the project include making all patient rooms at St. Mary’s private rooms. Currently, the hospital’s nearly 400 beds are split between private and shared rooms. The hospital would tap into its existing stock of licensed medical beds to outfit the tower and would add 10 more bassinets and relocate existing ones as part of the tower project.

Other changes include improvements to the hospital’s loading dock, which is considered outdated, and its main entrance.

The expansion project’s general contractor is DPR. Architecture firm Perkins&Will was tapped to handle the project’s design. Engineering firms Timmons Group, CMTA and Simpson Gumpertz & Heger are also involved in the project.

Bon Secours expects to break ground on the project this summer, and plans to start vertical construction of the tower, subject to zoning approval, in the fall. The tower is currently slated to open in 2028, according to a health system spokeswoman.

St. Mary’s opened in 1966, and the proposed expansion would be the latest in a series of projects over the years. The last major project at the hospital was an emergency room that opened in 2013.

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