The Hospital Corporation of America is pushing forward with an expansion of its 187-bed Reston Hospital Center in the wake of the rejection by the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors of its request to build a hospital in the Broadlands region.
HCA Virginia on Friday submitted a rezoning request for the Reston campus to the Fairfax County Department of Planning and Zoning.
“Our long-term expansion plans for Reston Hospital Center have been under development for two years,” said Margaret Lewis, President of HCA’s Capital Division and head of HCA Virginia, on Friday. “Now, in the wake of the recent Broadlands Regional Medical Center decision, we will take full advantage of the opportunity to accelerate the project’s timetable.”
The Loudoun County Board of Supervisors denied a special exemption request from HCA on Feb. 3 that would have paved the way for a 164-bed facility in the Broadlands region. The contentious decision failed by a narrow 5-4 vote.
“Unfortunately, the board’s denial seems to indicate a lack of interest in our building a hospital in Loudoun,” said HCA spokesman Mark Foust.
The new project would enlarge the Reston complex by 345,000 square feet and add 152 new medical-surgical and obstetrical beds to the hospital’s three existing patient towers. A new six-story medical office building would be built, 650 additional parking spaces would be added, and the hospital’s surgical suite and Emergency Department would be expanded.
With timely approvals from Fairfax County and the commonwealth, the project could begin in the next 3-5 years.
“An expanded Reston hospital will serve virtually the same population as [BRMC] would have, [notably] western Fairfax and eastern Loudoun,” said Foust.
“It’s a way for us to fill health care delivery gaps in Northern Virginia and meet some community needs.”
Founded in 1986, Reston Hospital Center today has 187 beds and occupies a 15-acre campus. Altogether, the hospital and its medical office buildings have approximately 600,000 square feet of space. RHC is located approximately 10 miles southeast of the site of the proposed hospital in Broadlands, as well as the Inova Loudoun Hospital in Leesburg.
