The Columbia City Planning Commission on Monday approved Palmetto Health’s plans to build an 80,000-square-foot medical building on the Parkridge campus near Irmo. (Image/Provided)

Staff Report
Published Sept. 11, 2012

The Columbia City Planning Commission on Monday approved Palmetto Health’s plans to build an 80,000-square-foot medical building on the Parkridge campus near Irmo.

The new structure, which will be called the Ambulatory Services Building, will be next door to the $99 million Palmetto Health Baptist Parkridge Hospital presently under construction.

No cost estimate for the building was announced.

The four-story building will occupy 10 acres of the 76.56-acre Parkridge campus. It will be joined by an elevated walkway to the four-story, 224,590-square-foot hospital that’s scheduled to open in December 2013.

Construction of the Ambulatory Services Building will begin in about two months, Palmetto Health spokeswoman Tammie Epps said. The structure is expected to be completed when the new hospital opens.

The facility will be occupied primarily by Palmetto Health physician practices, Epps added.

“We have not finalized which physician practices will occupy the building,” she said. “Palmetto Health is committed to ensuring that we are able to provide the clinical services the community needs through our new hospital and the physician practices on the campus. We are working closely with the physicians in our practice network to determine the best way to achieve those goals.”

The new, 76-bed hospital is the first full-service medical facility built since Palmetto Health was founded in 1998 by the merger of Richland and Baptist hospitals.

An existing four-story medical office building also is on the campus at the intersection of Interstate 26 and Lake Murray Boulevard.

The medical office building, located across the road from the new hospital, houses a convenience care facility to serve walk-in patients without an appointment, physician offices, an imaging and diagnostic center, a full-service laboratory and an ambulatory surgery facility.