A pathway through a stand of pine trees connects CaroMont Health’s newly opened
54-bed hospital to the campus of Belmont Abbey College, the state’s only Roman
Catholic-affiliated college.
Conversations starting in 2018 between leaders at CaroMont, the college and monks of the Southern Benedictine Society, whose predecessors started the college in 1876, would culminate with the Jan. 8 opening of the $260 million hospital in eastern Gaston County,
10 miles west of Charlotte’s center city.
Passers-by on Interstate 85 see the gleam from CaroMont Regional Medical Center — Belmont’s four-story, glass facade. For those involved in those early discussions, the hospital represents a partnership between Gaston County’s second-largest employer and its only four-year college.
The hospital property includes a 100,000-square-foot medical office and represents a total CaroMont investment of about $315 million. It sits on 28 acres that Belmont Abbey College and the Benedictine order leases to the not-for-profit healthcare system.
The deal also involved CaroMont helping Belmont Abbey start a nursing program, which began in 2022 with 40 students. The college of approximately 1,700 students graduated its inaugural Bachelor in Science in Nursing class in May.
The association has proven to be a “game-changer for the region and beyond,” says Bill Thierfelder, the college’s president since 2004. Belmont Abbey nursing students will train at the hospital, which should lead to a solid pipeline for skilled nurses.
“We have the opportunity to not only save lives, but to change lives through our partnership with Belmont Abbey,” CaroMont CEO Chris Peek said in 2019 when announcing the plans. “This is not about a land transaction. This is not really even about CaroMont Health. This is about Gaston County.”
The Belmont hospital expects to serve about 30,000 patients a year, mostly from Gaston County, but also neighboring Mecklenburg, Lincoln and York County, South Carolina. The hospital will employ about 350 workers, 85% of them hired before it opened, says Richard Blackburn, vice president of operations.
CaroMont was established in 1946 as a tribute to soldiers killed in World War II. Its Gastonia hospital, opened in 1973, has 476 beds. Despite its proximity to healthcare systems with histories of acquisitions — namely Charlotte-based Atrium Health and
Novant Health of Winston-Salem – CaroMont has remained independent. Its status as
the only healthcare system in Gaston County with a hospital and surgical department worked in its favor when the State Medical Facilities Plan determined the county needed more hospital beds.
That left CaroMont as the only healthcare system that could feasibly build a second hospital in Gaston County under the state’s Certificate of Need system, which requires state approval for healthcare providers to add new services or facilities.
The new hospital has a full complement of imaging and diagnostic services, labor and delivery units and a surgical suite with two operating rooms. Patient rooms are between 250 and 260 square feet, more than double the size of rooms in the “original tower” at the Gastonia hospital, although newer rooms at the main hospital are larger.
Despite being so close to I-85’s rush of traffic, the rooms are quiet. Blackburn credits “sound engineers” with the hospital’s construction team.
Abbot Placid Solari, who serves as Belmont Abbey’s chancellor, says the hospital and the Abbey’s nursing program fit with the Benedictine order that has been around 1,500 years.
“So be assured of our prayers from the Abbey — right over there,” Solari said as he pointed toward the college during the hospital’s opening ceremony. “For CaroMont Health, for the staff of this most wondrous hospital and for those they serve.”■