Novant Health cut the ribbon Friday on a $170 million expansion of its east Mecklenburg County hospital in Matthews.
The four-story, 150,000-square foot tower is opening about 30 years after the former Presbyterian Health Services opened a 200,000-square-foot hospital in the Charlotte suburb. Presbyterian Health Services of Charlotte and Carolina Medicorp of Winston-Salem merged to create Novant Health in 1997, three years after the Matthews opening.
“There was nothing out here,” recalled Mark Tribbett, the hospital’s first president. That’s an overstatement, but the area has been among North Carolina’s fastest-growing areas over the two decades. In 2022, Atrium Health opened a new 40-bed hospital in Indian Trail in Union County, 3.5 miles from the Matthews site.
Under North Carolina’s Certificate of Need regulations, Novant Health added 20 licensed beds, so the Matthews hospital now has 177 licensed beds. In the tricky world of hospital math, however, hospital officials say the facility added 58 total beds, including licensed and observation, that will be available throughout the new tower. The new surgical unit will have 24 rooms.
The expansion also includes replacing the existing intensive-care unit, going from 10 to 16 beds. That project will be completed this summer, says Zack Landry, president of Novant Health Matthews.
Novant and Atrium are both seeking additional acute-care beds for their primary hospitals in Charlotte through the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services’ Certificate of Need division.
Novant wants to add 89 beds in a 9-story addition at its Elizabeth neighborhood campus. Atrium also is requesting 10 beds at Levine Children’s Hospital and 79 at a new tower under construction at its Dilworth neighborhood campus. A decision is expected by the end of March.
Vannoy Construction of West Jefferson was the contractor for the Matthews expansion, while McCulloch England Architects was the designer.
At the time of the 1997 merger, Novant Health had $1.5 billion in revenue and 12,000 employees. Its website notes it had $8.3 billion of revenue in 2023, and nearly 40,000 employees. It has made acquisitions since then that put its annual turnover in the $10 billion range.