The health systems each want to build new centers within a few miles of each other in eastern Hanover outside of the Town of Ashland, while HCA also is plotting a new hospital in the same area.
The expansion will make way for a new linear accelerator, a machine that’s used to treat cancer by beaming radiation at cancerous tumors.
The health system was gifted the 1,500-acre rural estate in Amherst County from the late Frank Eck, a longtime Richmond attorney whose sister, Sister Pat Eck, was a member of the Bon Secours board of directors.
Wednesday’s hearing, which is a regular feature of the state’s approval process for new medical facilities, came in the wake of a state health department staff report released in April that recommended denial of HCA’s proposal.
The health system is making fresh moves toward an expansion of its St. Francis Medical Center campus that has been on the drawing board for several years.
The center will occupy 18,000 square feet in the Ironbridge Commons building and feature a general-purpose operating room and a specialty operating room dedicated to eye surgery.
The authorization from City Council comes as the health system was due to make a $1.3 million payment to Richmond in lieu of taxes on the site – the latest cost to the health system for its expensive exit from a downtown development project.
A message from Virginia Commonwealth University
“One day you wake up and want to do something different,” Leigh Sewell said. “It seemed like a good time to make a change. I told my husband about it and he was like, ‘You mean in 10 years?’ and I was like ‘No, like in one year.’”
A message from Virginia Commonwealth University. Virginia can be a model of what higher education can do to build a tremendously robust economy and society, VCU president Michael Rao said at the “Making the Case: Higher Ed’s Value to Virginia” event. The event hosted leaders who discussed enhancing the value of higher education. Learn more.
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