Copley Hospital in Morrisville celebrated the opening of its new $12.5 million surgical facility this week. It had been in the permit and construction process since 2014.
The hospital received a permit, called a certificate of need, from the Green Mountain Care Board in February 2016. Construction started on the 19,560-square-foot surgical center in the summer of 2016.
Copley performs about 2,000 surgeries a year, according to Leah Hollenberger, the hospital’s spokesperson. The hospital does not expect to increase that number with the new facility, and therefore does not expect the project to increase health care costs.
“We don’t anticipate that because we are replacing the space that we currently have,” Hollenberger said. “We are modernizing the facility.”
The new facility is near the hospital’s emergency department and will have three operating rooms and one procedure room, the same as the current facility. The old facility, which was built in 1979, will be repurposed for the hospital’s birthing center and cafeteria.
The new facility will be called the James and Mary Louise Carpenter Surgical Center. He was an Episcopal priest who died in 2013; she was a research psychologist who died in 2005.
Copley funded the project largely through its existing budget and a loan. The hospital also raised $3.2 million from private donors for a portion of the project.