LAUREL, MD—The healthcare sector continues to play a significant role in the DC area economy as one healthcare provider will consolidate some services and build a new ambulatory facility, while another regional health care institution is looking to build a new $400-millon medical-surgical building at its DC-based campus.

The Board of Directors of Dimensions Healthcare System annonced on Friday it agreed to close the Laurel Regional Hospital in Laurel, MD by 2018 and build a new ambulatory medical facility that is expected to cost approximately $24 million to complete. The new facility, with a projected completion date of 2018, will include emergency services, outpatient surgery and comprehensive diagnostic imaging, and is expected to be built on the existing hospital campus.

Due to continued declining admissions Laurel Regional Hospital has been suffering operating losses for the past six years and the hospital expects to incur multi-million-dollar deficits until the new ambulatory facility opens in three years, according to the Board of Directors.

In April of this year, Dimensions Healthcare System announced that the formal review of its Certificate of Need for a new regional medical center in Prince George's County with the Maryland Health Care Commission had begun.

The proposed 231-bed facility will be located on 26 acres in Largo, at the Boulevard at the Capital Centre. Following the approval of its Certificate of Need, hospital officials say that construction for the approximately $645-million project could begin in 2016 with occupation by 2019.

Separately, in the DC area, MedStar Georgetown University Hospital is reportedly seeking approval from DC regulators for a new $400-million hospital building to be built on the school's campus.

MedStar Georgetown has hired Trammell Crow Co. to provide development management services, HKS as its interior designer and Shalom Baranes Associates as its base building architect for the project to be built at a site that is currently a parking lot adjacent to the main hospital facility, according to the Washington Business Journal.

The new medical pavilion will feature space for surgical, critical care and emergency departments as well as some hospital administrative staff.

Instant Insights /

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