ATLANTA-EHCA, a joint venture of Emory Healthcare and Nashville-based HCA The Healthcare Company, has filed a certificate of need with the state for a new $93 million hospital. The 120-bed facility would be built on a 30-acre site in North Fulton County, about 30 miles north of Downtown and adjacent to the Johns Creek Technology Center.The four-story, 272,000-sf hospital, to be called Emory Johns Creek, would replace and consolidate the existing 168-bed Emory Dunwoody Medical Center, about 18 miles south of the proposed facility, and the 294-bed West Paces Medical Center, which closed at the end of 1999.

Depending on the length of the approval process, the hospital could open in fall 2003.

Emory Johns Creek plans to provide emergency services, maternity services and an intensive care unit. Rapid growth in the north metro area has created an affluent population center over the last 10 years, and healthcare companies are vying to establish care facilities.