Chattanooga's three biggest hospitals are all located within a couple of miles of each other between the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga campus and the Glenwood community.
But most of those who come to the main campuses of either Erlanger, Parkridge or CHI Memorial hospitals live elsewhere in Hamilton County. As the county's population grows to the east and north, health care providers are shifting their medical offices and outpatient facilities closer to where most people live.
Parkridge Medical Center in Glenwood, which opened in 1971 as one of the first hospitals built by the Hospital Corporation of America (now HCA Healthcare), added Parkridge North hospital on Lee Highway in 2020 and Parkridge Camp Jordan Emergency Room in 2023. HCA Parkridge is currently building another $16 million emergency room facility in Soddy Daisy, which is scheduled to open later this year, and is developing plans with Erlanger Health System for another outpatient facility and physician office complex in a former U.S. Xpress office complex on Jenkins Road in East Brainerd.
Chris Cosby, president and CEO or Parkidge Health System, says the hospital "is growing to meet the needs of the community" with a 10-year building and capital campaign valued at $352 million. While much of that spending will be in the heart of Chattanooga, Cosby says a growing share is being made in the suburbs with new emergency care and outpatient facilities that are more accessible and can offer quicker services for many people.
"With all of the growth occurring in this area, these new ER (emergency room) beds couldn't come at a better time," says Will Windham, CEO of Parkridge East hospital.
In Soddy-Daisy, Parkridge also is erecting an 11,000-square-foot emergency room facility that will include 12 beds, a trauma room, diagnostic capabilities and support services -- including CT, X-ray, on-site laboratory, pharmacy and radiology support. A helipad will also be onsite in case emergency air transportation is needed.
"The north end of the county is growing by leaps and bounds, and all the hospital ERs in Chattanooga are overwhelmed," Soddy Daisy Mayor Rick Nunley said last year when the project began. "Hopefully this will lighten the load on the other hospitals' emergency rooms, and it shortens the time from the north end of the county to get to emergency care by quite a bit."
Photo by Dave Flessner / The former offices of U.S. Xpress on Jenkins Avenue will be converted by 2025 into the Chattanooga East Surgicenter under a first-of-a-kind partnership between Erlanger Health System and HCA Parkridge Health System.Healthy growth in East Brainerd
Over the past decade and a half, the East Brainerd area around Chattanooga's biggest shopping mall at Hamilton Place has already become home for dozens of physician offices, outpatient surgery centers and hospital branches for both Erlanger and CHI Memorial. In 2016, Erlanger launched a $50 million expansion of its Erlanger East hospital on Gunbarrel Road and numerous physician offices have located nearby over the past decade.
Just north of Hamilton Place, another new office building is taking shape this year along Lee Highway near Hickory Valley Road that developers hope will attract still more medical offices. Tom DuPre, a Realtor with Results Realty, LLC, said the new office being built at 6736 Lee Highway next to the office of Chattanooga Allergy Clinic will house G. T. Issa Custom Homes headquarters which is looking to also lease space for medical offices in the new complex.
"The east side of Hamilton County has and continues to be where the greatest amount of commercial development is taking place, and medical services are a big ingredient," DuPre says. "Medical providers typically follow residential expansion, and new residential has been very active on the east side for many years."
Outpatient surgery centers grow
Last year, the Center for Sports Medicine relocated and expanded its outpatient surgery center from Holtzclaw Avenue near downtown Chattanooga to a new $18.5 million ambulatory care facility in Tyner along Interstate 75. Lauren Lawson, director of marketing for the Center for Sports Medicine, says the 4.3-acre site in East Hamilton County was selected to expand the center's surgery center "based on convenience for patients coming from all of our clinic locations" across the Chattanooga region.
One of the biggest new medical care projects is the joint venture by Erlanger and Parkridge to develop the former U.S. Xpress property under a partnership known as Chattanooga East Surgicenter, LLC. Last November, state regulators approved a certificate of need to build a $23.2 million multi-speciality, outpatient surgery center inside a former U.S. Xpress office building off Interstate 75 in the rapidly growing East Brainerd community.
The new facility, to be known as the Chattanooga East Surgicenter, is the first such partnership between competing hospitals in Chattanooga and is projected to open in 2025. Developers project the facility will see roughly 7,100 cases in the first year and more than 12,100 cases in the second year.
In a certificate of need application filed with the state, the hospitals indicate the proposed multi-specialty outpatient center will include five operating rooms and four procedure rooms and all required ancillary and support spaces. The developers contend the new facility will "facilitate the shift of outpatient surgery from the hospital-based environment to the more cost-effective and convenient environment and improve efficiencies for patients, surgeons, and local hospitals."
The new outpatient center is being developed on a portion of the 38 acres along Jenkins Road purchased by Parkridge for $36 million last August. The site includes plenty of vacant site for other medical office development in the growing area.
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