Leaders at Novant Health are gearing up for several expansions coming to medical centers in the Cape Fear. 

After years of planning, Novant Health and New Hanover Regional Medical Center will break ground on the new Scotts Hill Community Hospital, located at 151 Scotts Hill Medical Drive, this spring. The hospital will be a 66-bed facility focusing on orthopedic services, but will also provide general surgery and other services. 

Hospital leaders are currently working with architectural firms and designers to get an idea of what the facility will look like once it’s completed toward the end of 2024, said Shelbourn Stevens, president of New Hanover Regional Medical Center and Novant Health’s coastal market. He said the goal of the hospital is to have a “state of the art facility up there for that community.” 

Plans for the facility were originally rejected by the state’s Department of Health and Human Services in February 2021 because the hospital had not provided adequate proof of need for the additional hospital beds when it originally applied for approval of the $210 million facility in September 2020. Healthcare providers are required to get permission from the state department prior to developing or offering new services. 

Novant Health reapplied and was granted permission in April 2021. The facility will acquire 36 beds from the orthopedic hospital on Wrightsville Avenue and will add 30 new beds, in addition to eight new operating rooms. Stevens said he’s anticipating some staff will transfer to the new hospital, but jobs will also become available for new staff to start at the Scotts Hill hospital. 

New health clinics:With New Hanover County land donation, plans for Michael Jordan health clinics move ahead

In addition to the new hospital, Novant Health has several other projects in the works in 2022 throughout the Wilmington area. 

After damage caused by Hurricane Florence set back construction, a neurosciences tower is set to open on the New Hanover Regional Medical Center campus this fall. The 108-bed medical tower will have an ICU and stroke unit, as well as medical and surgical units, inpatient beds, and a “state of the art interventional suite” to handle things like emergent strokes and aneurysms, said Laurie Whalin, president of Brunswick Medical Center. 

“That building has been a little bit of a labor of love,” Whalin said. 

Whalin said the neurosciences tower, which will include a $30 million addition to the building, will begin serving patients from seven area counties in September 2022. 

Brunswick Medical Center will also have a groundbreaking in February for additional medical offices, one on the medical center’s main campus and another in Shallotte. The one at the medical center will expand cardiac services and the Novant Health Oceanside Family Medicine Clinic will add neurology, psychiatry and physical therapy services. 

Two Michael Jordan clinics are also in the works in New Hanover County to serve communities without healthcare services nearby through a $10 million donation from Michael Jordan, Stevens said. Those will be built on land donated by the county at 1410 S. 15th St. and another location that has not yet been determined.

“Fortunately, being part of Novant Health, we've already done this in the Charlotte market, so we have some work that we could use as a blueprint to bring here to Wilmington to get those opened up and jump right in,” Stevens said. 

Reporter Sydney Hoover can be reached at 910-343-2339 or shoover@gannett.com.