Baptist Health Lexington plans to open new campus in Hamburg by 2023 with 600 jobs
Baptist Health Lexington plans to open an outpatient surgery and medical campus in the Hamburg area by early 2023, hospital officials said this week.
William Sisson, president of Baptist Health Lexington, said the new outpatient-centered medical campus will be off Polo Club Boulevard near the Man o’ War exit of Interstate-75.
The campus will help the hospital provide more services to people in the Hamburg area and in surrounding counties, he said.
“About 60 percent of our patients come from outside Fayette County,” Sisson said.
Health care is also moving toward more outpatient surgeries and care, he said.
Baptist Health filed a development plan with the city earlier this month. The plan shows a multi-story hospital, a surgery center and 12 other buildings that would contain a combination of retail and medical office space. Also included are two, seven-story parking garages. The development will be accessed via Polo Club Boulevard.
“This will be built in phases,” Sisson said.
The outpatient surgery center, an emergency department and some of the medical office buildings will be built first. There are no immediate plans to build another hospital or the parking garages.
“This is a long-term plan the city requires for the property,” Sisson said. “The hospital is for future growth.”
Ruth Ann Childers, a spokeswoman for Baptist Health, said the existing hospital and its other services will remain on Nicholasville Road. Baptist Health Hamburg, the name for the new center, will be a second campus.
Sisson said some of the services envisioned for the outpatient campus include cancer care, diagnostic services such as mammograms, colonoscopies, and urgent and emergency care.
“It will initially be 600 to 700 employees,” Sisson said.
Baptist Health Lexington’s main campus on Nicholasville Road has been expanded several times over the past few decades. In January, 43 new hospital beds will open. The hospital, which has been at its Nicholasville Road location since 1954, currently has 391 inpatient beds, according to its website.
“We are running out of space,” Sisson said. “We have no other place to build (on Nicholasville Road).”
Baptist Health spent $29 million in 2009 to purchase the 129 acres in what is called the expansion area — land that was added in 1996 to the urban services area, which is where development can occur.
Since then, questions have frequently come up about how the hospital system plans to use the land. Since it purchased the property, a Costco and a Cabela’s have been built adjacent to the hospital’s land.
The area continues to grow. Ball Homes recently received final approval for a 340-unit apartment complex nearby. The developer also received initial approval to build 80 homes and 78 townhouses off Polo Club Boulevard.
The hospital system’s development plan must be approved by the Urban County Planning Commission. It is scheduled for final approval at the Dec. 12 meeting. Baptist Health does not need a zone change to build the new outpatient-centered campus.
Cost estimates and architectural renderings have not yet been completed, hospital officials said this week.
Sisson said the company does not plan to ask for tax increment financing, which uses portions of new taxes generated from a project to pay for infrastructure costs, such as parking garages. The hospital may pursue other incentives, hospital officials said.
“We plan to have a lot of surface parking at first to make it easier for our patients to get in and out,” Sisson said of the ambulatory care center. “We are very excited to offer these outpatient services in an area where our patients can get to easily.”
Sisson said they hope to break ground in the fall of 2020, with the first buildings opening sometime in early 2023.
This story was originally published November 15, 2019 at 1:51 PM.
