Here’s where a new Indian Land hospital could go, and what else the site has planned.
An application is in for a new Indian Land hospital site.
A commercial real estate firm representing Medical University Hospital Authority, affiliated with the Medical University of South Carolina, applied to rezone two parcels at a combined 87 acres at 9258 Charlotte Hwy. The same site was rezoned from residential to a more limited business use listing last year.
A planning commission hearing in Lancaster County with that decision and several others comes April 21.
The site now has a home and barn on it. According to the zoning application, the site would have a new hospital and two or three medical buildings on it. The property is on the east side of the main highway, between the Thousand Oaks and Windsor Trace neighborhoods.
Last fall the Herald reported the MUSC hospital system voted to file five new certificates of need for expansions in South Carolina. One of those filings involved relocation of 100 beds from Lancaster Medical Center to the Indian Land area.
“Currently, there are no existing beds or emergency services in northern Lancaster County,” MUSC Health CEO Patrick J. Cawley said at the time. “We are moving beds and quality care to where the patients are.”
MUSC operates numerous hospitals and medical sites including Chester Medical Center, Lancaster Medical Center and The Surgery Center at Edgewater in Indian Land. MUSC has almost a dozen affiliated primary care, women’s health, orthopedic and other sites in Lancaster and Chester counties.
The eight-hospital system an affiliates have an annual budget of $3 billion, according to its website, and more than 17,000 employees or team members. The system has in recent weeks announced temporary layoffs at facilities due to the COVID-19 coronavirus and limited non-emergency services at medical sites.
The zoning application doesn’t show a site plan for the hospital and medical buildings. The planning commission will hear the case and make a recommendation for or against rezoning to Lancaster County Council. Council, then, will make the final call.
County planning staff already cast its recommendation in favor of the rezoning.
This story was originally published April 17, 2020 at 8:15 AM.
