Summerlin hospital expands

Summerlin Hospital Medical Center has broken ground on its new six-story patient tower.

Scheduled for completion in early 2010, the new patient tower will add an additional 180 private patient rooms, bringing the total number of hospital rooms to 480. Additional rooms will be added to the labor and delivery and recovery suites, antepartum and postpartum suites and new beds in a number of key areas, including neonatal intensive care, critical care, medical/telemetry and post-surgery rooms.

The patient tower is the third and final phase of the hospital's $100 million expansion -- the largest expansion project in its 10-year history. In addition to the patient tower, the expansion includes a more spacious emergency room; a four-story, 80,000-square-foot medical office building; and a 600-space parking garage. Phase one of the emergency room and parking garage expansions are now complete. The medical office building is scheduled for completion this fall.

According to Alex Villa, chief operating officer of Summerlin Hospital, the hospital is constantly growing to meet the community's needs. "Summerlin Hospital opened its 147-bed facility in October 1997 to serve the needs of the then 25,000 residents living in Summerlin," he said. "The community is now home to nearly 100,000 residents -- it has quadrupled in size during the last 10 years. And so has the hospital.

"We have expanded from a small community hospital to a full-service medical center offering a wide variety of specialized services."

The hospital now has a thriving maternity program, a pediatric intensive care unit and emergency room, a comprehensive cardiac program that includes sophisticated electrophysiology and open heart surgery services, a diabetes treatment center for both adults and children, a wound care center and more.

Developed by The Howard Hughes Corporation, an affiliate of General Growth Properties, Inc., Summerlin began to take shape in 1990.

Located along the western rim of the Las Vegas valley, Summerlin encompasses 22,500 acres with approximately 9,000 acres for future growth.

For more information on Summerlin and its home builders and neighborhoods, visit summerlin.com or call 888-898-5015.