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Augusta University Medical Center is moving forward with plans to construct a new hospital and medical campus on Interstate 20 in Columbia County, Ga., 13 miles west of downtown Augusta.

AU Medical Center on April 19 filed plans with the state of Georgia for the project as a development of regional impact. Plans call for a medical mixed-use campus consisting of an approximately 600,000-square-foot hospital with associated uses, approximately 125,000 square feet of medical office buildings, and approximately 60,000 square feet of professional, health, and retail uses.

Earlier in April, AU Medical Center filed to rezone the 52-acre site of the proposed medical campus. Check out a site plan here. The project is being designed by Catalyst Design Group of Nashville, Tenn.

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Site plan of Augusta University Medical Center's proposed medical campus in Columbia County, Ga.

COLUMBIA COUNTY, GEORGIA

It would be the first hospital in Columbia County, which AU Medical Center says is Georgia’s fastest-growing county without its own hospital. The surrounding area has been a center of population growth.

"The primary goal of this development is to create a diverse and integrated medical mixed-use campus with activated retail, office, hospitality, and primary medical services," Catalyst Design says in a visioning guidebook for the project. "The vision is to create a destination environment where patrons can have their medical needs addressed while concurrently enjoying a spa treatment, fitness class, specialty shopping or a bite to eat. Offering multiple services in a pedestrian friendly, neighborhood-scale development creates a welcoming destination that patrons, patients and employees enjoy spending time in." 

The project has been in the works for five years. In 2014, the Georgia Department of Community Health issued AU Medical Center a Certificate of Need (CON) to build a 100-bed hospital in Columbia County. The hospital, with a Level II trauma center, would represent a $150 million investment. Plans for the two-story, 260,000-square-foot design included an 18-bed emergency department; six operating rooms, with pre- and post-anesthesia care units; and 24 dedicated intensive care and 76 medical-surgical rooms with universal beds for the bulk of the inpatient care.

AU Medical Center bought an 82-acre parcel in Columbia County for the project in 2017.

But the project has been held up by an appeal filed by Doctors Hospital of Augusta, a competing hospital owned by Nashville, Tenn.-based HCA Healthcare Inc. (NYSE: HCA).

AU Medical Center is still waiting on the final appeal by Doctors Hospital on the CON for the Columbia County Hospital to be decided. Final legal approval could come this summer, Augusta University spokesperson Denise H. Parrish told Atlanta Business Chronicle.

Read more here