Adventist HealthCare and Holy Cross Hospital have filed their final applications to build scaled-back hospitals in the upcounty. Adventist reduced its proposed number of beds while Holy Cross reduced the size of its facility.
Adventist made some minor changes to its proposal, which has been in the works for several years and has many of the required land-use approvals from the county, said Robert Jepson, vice president of government relations and public policy for Adventist HealthCare of Rockville. Proposed hospital beds were reduced from 100 to 86 after looking at projections for need, he said. The hospital’s expected cost decreased from about $202 million to roughly $177 million due to softening of the construction market.
“We feel very confident that we have a good project in the fastest growing part of the county,” Jepson said. “We think it’s the right project in the right place at the right time.”
Eleven state legislators wrote that they support Adventist’s proposal in a Sept. 21 letter to the commission because of the level of community involvement in developing the project, existing land use approvals and its location near Interstate 270 within a proposed comprehensive medical campus. All representatives in Districts 15, 17 and 39 except for Del. Saqib Ali (D-Dist. 39) of Gaithersburg signed the letter, which also expressed concerns about the impact a Germantown hospital could have on the Germantown Emergency Center.
Sen. Jennie M. Forehand (D-Dist. 17) of Rockville, Sen. Nancy J. King (D-Dist. 39) of Montgomery Village and Del. Craig L. Rice (D-Dist. 15) of Germantown said the changes to Adventist’s application did not affect their support for the project.
“I liked the way Adventist has gone about doing the project,” King said. “They’ve brought in the public and kept everybody informed all the way through.”
