By Dennis Quick
Senior Staff Writer

Roper St. Francis recently named Charlotte, N.C.-based BE&K Building Group as the project’s general contractor for its planned 85-bed facility.

BE&K finished 12th out of 163 firms in Southeast Construction magazine’s April 2007 ranking of the Southeast’s top contractors. With 2005 revenues of $223.6 million, the 258-employee BE&K was ranked North Carolina’s ninth-largest general contractor by Business North Carolina magazine.

Groundbreaking for the 200,000-square-foot hospital is scheduled for later this year. Construction will get under way in early 2008. The hospital is expected to open in November 2010.

“We’re proud that BE&K Building Group has joined our project team. They bring considerable experience in the area of health care construction, and we look forward to working with them to build and open our new Roper St. Francis Mount Pleasant hospital,” said David Dunlap, president and chief executive officer for Roper St. Francis Healthcare.

In January, Roper St. Francis selected health care architecture firm FreemanWhite to design the new hospital. Based in Charlotte, FreemanWhite was ranked 15th among the nation’s health care architectural firms by Modern Healthcare magazine.

Charleston-based architecture firm LS3P Associates will assist FreemanWhite in the hospital’s design.

Roper’s new $123 million facility will be located on 78 acres at the intersection of U.S. Highway 17 North and Faison Road in the Carolina Park development. The hospital will include 24-hour emergency care, women’s services, inpatient and outpatient surgery, intensive and critical care units, plus imaging equipment, a laboratory and a pharmacy.

A few miles south of Roper’s future hospital on U.S. Highway 17, East Cooper Regional Medical Center also took a step toward building its new hospital by selecting St. Petersburg, Fla.-based architecture firm Harvard Jolly Inc. to design the forthcoming 140-bed facility, which will be built on 55 acres next to East Cooper’s existing 100-bed facility near the intersection of Highway 17 and Interstate 526.

Harvard Jolly has been recognized by Modern Healthcare magazine as one of the top 75 health care design firms in the United States.

East Cooper’s new $160 million hospital will replace the existing one and include an adult burn unit, an expanded 24-hour emergency room, expanded women’s services, neurosurgery services and cardiac diagnostic services. All rooms are planned to be private.

Hospital officials have yet to select a general contractor. However, civil engineering on the site has already begun, said Pam Tucker, East Cooper’s marketing and public relations director.

The new hospital is expected to open in January 2009.

Dennis Quick covers health and wellness for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dquick@charlestonbusiness.com.

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