$75M WVU Hospitals Expansion Begins

MORGANTOWN, WVA-Good news has come to those seeking increased healthcare options in this central West Virginia region along the Pennsylvania border now that ground has been broken on the $75 million expansion of the 450-bed West Virginia University Hospitals property. Facility augmentation will center on the campus’s Ruby Memorial Hospital, which will see an addition of a total of 180,000 sf by the time the project wraps up in 2005.

“WVU Hospitals has been a rich source of innovation in this state,” Gov. Bob Wise said in a comment from the groundbreaking. “When the state could not support a new hospital in the 1980s, WVU took the hospital off the state’s books and created an innovative new structure–a not-for-profit university hospital.” Ruby Memorial currently holds 385 of the greater hospital property’s 450 beds. The 81-bed and six-operating room expansion endeavor includes 51,000 sf for the operating rooms and support space; 128,000 sf for intensive care units, skilled nursing, acute care, and support space; and renovations to 60,800 sf of existing space. Developers will build a seven-story tower and expand the top floors of an existing structure to encase the new spaces.