Expansion expected to open in late 2023
Ohiohealth officials this week celebrated completion of the steel frame for a 220,000-square-foot expansion of their Pickerington campus and revealed a new name for the facility – Ohiohealth Pickerington Methodist Hospital – while offering details about additional services at the facility.
Officials said the project, in excess of $140 million, will yield several new medical services at 1010 Refugee Road, including cancer treatment and women’s health.
“We are on time, and we’re looking at a late-fall (2023) opening,” said Dr. Kevin Lutz, president of Ohiohealth Pickerington Methodist Hospital.
Ohiohealth opened its 150,000-square-foot medical campus in Pickerington in January 2015. It offers 24-hour emergency care seven days a week, as well as primary care, imaging, physical therapy and outpatient surgeries.
Last February, Ohiohealth officials announced plans to expand on 30 undeveloped acres on the campus, but details were not made public until this week.
In the six-story expansion, Lutz said 205,000 square feet will make up a new hospital and 15,000 square feet will be reserved for cancer/infusion spaces.
“The hospital will have 60 total beds, which includes a dedicated ICU (intensive-care unit), medical surgical beds and post-partum beds,” Lutz said.
Lutz said the expansion will bring six operating rooms to the hospital, in addition to two C-section operating rooms.
New services also will include a level-three trauma unit and a heart and vascular unit that will feature diagnostic and interventional catheter labs.
The project will add an acute stroke program to the services at the campus, as well as general medicine, general surgery and ancillary expansion for
imaging, lab and pharmacy services.
The facility, renamed because of the expanded services, will employ more than 500, Lutz said.
“Ohiohealth is committed to expanding our already robust services in the Pickerington community with the building of Ohiohealth Pickerington Methodist Hospital,” he said.
“Since we opened the Ohiohealth Pickerington Medical Campus in 2015, we have continued to learn about the healthcare needs of those who live and work in and around Pickerington. We are excited to add more life-saving capabilities to our campus to continue to serve the community.”
Lutz said the project will include shell space for future growth “based on community need.”
“We don’t know what that need is yet,” he said. “As the community grows, we want to be prepared to be there for what is needed.”
In celebrating the growth of the local Ohiohealth campus, Pickerington Mayor Lee Gray credited the Pickerington school board for approving a 30-year tax-increment financing deal that, among other things, allowed Ohiohealth to fund widening Refugee Road by four or five lanes from state Route 256 to the main Ohiohealth Refugee Road entrance in lieu of paying taxes on that land.
The TIF also provided Ohiohealth funding for building three new lanes on
Refugee to the city’s corporation limits that abut the city of Columbus.
“We’re not here if we don’t get to the first phase,” Gray said.
He said Ohiohealth has brought needed medical services to the community and has been a strong partner with the city, Pickerington Schools and Violet Township.
“Ohiohealth has been an exceptional partner for our community,” Gray said.
“Having a hospital that’s this close adds an immense amount of value for all the people who live here.”
Lutz said Ohiohealth likely would have started the expansion sooner had it
not been for the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020.
He also said the hospital is designed to serve people in surrounding communities .
“This was an opportunity for us to transition from being a medical campus to a hospital,” he said. “This will be more than just a community hospital.
“This will serve a region because we will have a trauma program as well as an interventional heart and vascular and stroke program and full labor and delivery.” nellis@thisweeknews.com @Thisweeknate