Fayetteville is getting a major expansion to Cape Fear Valley Medical Center, as the hospital announced a new $110 million building.
The expansion will add 100 beds to the flagship facility on Owen Drive. It will be two new floors built on top of the current Valley Pavilion section of the hospital, where the emergency department currently is, along Village Drive. That will raise the Pavilion from five to seven stories.
“We recognized that we need this expansion to meet the growing needs of our community, and to provide meaningful assistance to reduce delays in our Emergency Department,” Cape Fear Valley CEO Michael Nagowski said. “We expect that this will dramatically improve wait times in the ER.”
The expansion will add an additional 187 full-time positions, according to Nagowski. He said the system has been saving for this planned expansion.
No closures are anticipated as part of the expansion, which Little Diversified Architectural Consulting and Rodgers Builders, Inc. will complete.
“It was a major consideration, because we need to be adding onto this facility while it’s occupied,” Nagowski said. “During different phases of construction, there may be some traffic pattern adjustments around our entrances, but they will remain open. We don’t expect the project to affect traffic on Owen Drive or Village Drive at all.”
Construction begins this Fall, and is anticipated to be completed in Fall of 2024. About 40 percent of the new beds are set to be ICU beds. The remaining beds will be medical/surgery impatient and observation beds. All of them will be in private rooms.
Two rooftop helipads are being added, which will allow patients to be transported directly to the emergency department by elevator. The current helipad requires patient transport from the front lawn.
“Our plan is that one of the helipads will be structured to accept Blackhawk helicopters,” said Nagowski. “We want to make sure we have complete readiness if it was needed, because of our proximity to Fort Bragg.”
This is the first major expansion for Cape Fear Valley since Valley Pavilion was opened in 2008. Outside of behavioral health beds, there are 524 Acute Care beds and 78 Rehabilitation beds at the facility.
Cheer Up: What's the Happiest City in North Carolina?
No. 27 - Raleigh
Raleigh comes out as the happiest city in North Carolina, largely thanks to a rank of No. 23 in Emotional & Physical Well Being.
- Emotional & Physical Well Being: 23
- Income & Employment: 71
- Community & Environment: 63
- Total Score: 62.35
No. 168 - Fayetteville
It’s not that things are all unhappy around Fayetteville, it’s just that we didn’t exactly score well in a lot of the key factors for this study. Fayetteville does rank as the least happy of the major North Carolina cities in the study. Just behind Fayetteville overall is Jackson, Mississippi and Birmingham, Alabama.
Fayetteville also took a hit, coming in at No. 181 on Lowest Income Growth and No. 180 on Most Work Hours.
- Emotional & Physical Well Being: 161
- Income & Employment: 155
- Community & Environment: 171
- Total Score: 40.83
No. 3 - San Francisco, California
- Emotional & Physical Well Being: 4
- Income & Employment: 1
- Community & Environment: 44
- Total Score: 71.15
No. 7 - Seattle, Washington
- Emotional & Physical Well Being: 6
- Income & Employment: 2
- Community & Environment: 99
- Total Score: 67.67
No. 180 - Memphis, Tennessee
- Emotional & Physical Well Being: 176
- Income & Employment: 181
- Community & Environment: 172
- Total Score: 34.86
No. 182 - Detroit, Michigan
- Emotional & Physical Well Being: 179
- Income & Employment: 179
- Community & Environment: 177
- Total Score: 32.31