Shady Grove Adventist Hospital has submitted plans to nearly double the size of its campus as part of Montgomery County’s highly anticipated Science City development. Known as the Great Seneca Science Corridor, the master plan for the area in Rockville was passed by the County Council last May after years of debate and delay. Adventist, with Johns Hopkins University and Alexandria Real Estate Equities Inc., has submitted preliminary plans for development.
The hospital’s plan, which is scheduled to be heard by the county Development Review Board on Monday, would add nearly 507,000 square feet to the campus, boosting the health center to a total footprint of more than 1.1 million square feet.
It proposes demolishing two secondary buildings — the Adventist Behavioral Health building and the Broschart Building — and constructing several new ones, including a cancer center and a new behavioral health psychiatric hospital.
The expansion, which also includes an addition to the main hospital building for more patient rooms and expanding the rehabilitation hospital, aims to broaden services and update the campus for the 21st century, said Larry Walker, Adventist’s real estate adviser.
“That behavioral health building is 25 years old — it’s not the way you deliver behavioral help today,” said Walker, principal of the Walker Group in Bethesda. “It needs to be done in a different form. For example, there’s a lot more outpatient [programs] today. It needs to grow and change.”
Walker noted that the development plan does not have a timeline as actual construction is subject to financing and approval by the Maryland Healthcare Commission.
By contrast, Johns Hopkins and Alexandria Real Estate are in a race to win approval as just 400,000 square feet of new commercial space will be allowed in Phase I of the corridor west of Interstate 270 at Montgomery Avenue.
Hopkins has amended an earlier preliminary plan to include an additional 400,000 square feet of commercial development in what will eventually be its 1.7 million-square-foot Montgomery County campus. The massive project includes building a town center at a proposed stop for the Corridor Cities Transitway at Blackwell and Broshart roads.
Alexandria Real Estate is asking for 236,000 square feet of new commercial space to support up to 700 bioscience jobs in addition to building several other research labs on its property on Medical Center Drive.
