Turner Construction Co. broke ground on the project in 2002, with William M. Brennan, senior vice president at Turner's Washington, DC office, surmising the project at that time as "a state-of-the-art facility at which advanced heart procedures will be performed." The new center is the Metropolitan Washington, DC area's first medical facility dedicated exclusively to the treatment of cardiovascular diseases.

Located right off Interstate 495 near Arlington Boulevard, the IHI is encapsulated in a five-story structure that was designed by the architectural firm of Wilmot/Sanz. The center boasts a spot adjacent to the hospital's outpatient surgery facility and features 156 beds, with 52 beds on each of three floors. Additionally, there are operating rooms, labs, administrative office space and a satellite pharmacy. An underground parking garage accounts for one of the floors.

Inova Fairfax Hospital is just one of many medical centers in Northern Virginia that have instituted multi-million expansions over the last couple of years. Among the many medical facilities that participated in the expansion trend are Mary Washington Hospital in Fredericksburg, which spent $47.3 million on renovations and the development of a 94-bed patient building, and Sentara Healthcare, which constructed its 400,000-sf CarePlex Hospital in Hampton for $72 million.