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Community Health Network said Monday it plans to build a $335 million hospital in Westfield with a six-story, 100-bed patient tower.
The project will mark the Indianapolis-based health care system’s first hospital in Hamilton County, the most prosperous and fastest-growing county in Indiana, where all other major hospital systems in central Indiana have set up full-service and specialty hospitals in recent years.
The project, to be located near 196th Street and U.S. 31, will feature a mix of new construction and renovations, on the site of a former business park. It will include an emergency department, medical offices and an ambulatory surgical center. Altogether, the facility will span 425,000 square feet.
The campus will offer services including women’s health, orthopedics, primary care, behavioral health, support services, outpatient imaging and cardiovascular care. It will also offer labor and delivery services and have a neonatal intensive care unit.
Community Health said that by renovating existing buildings, it expects to save more than $50 million compared to building new from the ground up.
Community Health said it expects to complete the medical office building in the first quarter of 2025, and the surgery center, hospital service building and hospital tower in mid-2026.
“This expansion reflects our responsiveness to Westfield’s growth and needs,” Jason Fahrlander, Community Health’s chief operating officer, said in written remarks.
Westfield is the fastest growing community in Indiana, with a population of 54,605, up 7.7% in 2022 alone, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Hamilton County, as well, is the fastest-growing county in Indiana, expanding its population 26.5% from 2010 to 2020.
Community Health’s new hospital will be only the second hospital in Westfield, after Noblesville-based Riverview Health’s 16-bed Westfield Hospital, which opened in 2018 at a cost of $55 million, featuring operating rooms, a combined emergency room and urgent care center, breast and bone care and therapy.
Community Health’s new hospital will be about four miles north of Riverview Health’s hospital.
“Soon, residents of Westfield and beyond will be able to conveniently access a wide range of comprehensive services close to home,” Derek McMichael, Community Health vice president and hospital administrator for the system’s Kokomo and Westfield regions, said in written remarks.
David Hyatt, president and CEO of Hamilton County-owned Riverview Health, said he was proud to serve Westfield but avoided commenting on the new competition from Community Health.
“We are excited for Westfield’s growth and are committed to growing along with our neighbors,” he said in an email to IBJ. “We just celebrated Riverview Health Westfield Hospital’s fifth anniversary and are continuing to grow. This summer we will be opening a new primary care office across the street from Big Hoffa’s, with another location opening across from Meijer at Springmill and (State Road) 32 in the summer of 2025. As a resident of Westfield, I am proud of Riverview’s commitment to ensuring our friends, families, and neighbors have access to the highest quality of care close to home.”
The Community Health project will include the reconstruction of two existing buildings, at 19800 N. East St. and 19900 N. East St. They will house the emergency department, ambulatory surgical center and other services. The project also includes construction of a new inpatient tower, featuring a design of floor-to-ceiling windows.
Plans for the project are under review by the city of Westfield, which will hold a public hearing later this summer.
Community Health has 10 other hospitals in Indianapolis, Anderson, Greenwood, Kokomo and Brownsburg.
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While the hospital lobbying efforts tout their “struggles,” they seem to continue to find dollars for projects such as these.
I wonder where Community plans to find the doctors and nurses necessary to staff this new facility? Or will it be stuffed mostly by nurse practitioners? Doctors seem to be retiring early or just quitting because of the many pressures resulting in total burn out…
Technically speaking, the six story hospital does not qualify as a “tower.” It is a mid-rise building, as towers are typically have a minimum of 15 stories.
For whatever reason, hospitals tend to refer to the multifloor bulk of their building(s) that houses patients as “towers” regardless of whether they meet any architectural standards as such. My brother works at a hospital campus in another state, and I think the tallest building is 5 stories and yet all the wayfinding refers to the “north tower”, “south tower”, “[so and so donor] tower” etc.