Breaking Bluffton Ground: Beaufort Memorial Kicks Off Construction of Bluffton Community Hospital

May 12, 2025

Beaufort Memorial Bluffton Community Hospital groundbreaking ceremony

Over 150 community members, government officials and Bluffton business leaders came out on a partly-cloudy May 7 to commemorate a shining milestone for Beaufort Memorial: the construction of the Bluffton Community Hospital.

This 28-bed, $103 million facility located at 10 Innovation Drive (on the corner of Bluffton and Buckwalter Parkways) will feature a full-service emergency department, surgery center, cath lab, inpatient acute nursing unit, and imaging services.

“This is very exciting for us. It’s exciting for the medical staff, and it’s exciting for the patients. We know that patients are choosing today to travel from Bluffton to Beaufort Memorial, so it’s incumbent upon us as healthcare providers to make sure we meet the patients where they are,” said Beaufort Memorial President and CEO Russell Baxley, addressing event attendees. “We need more accessible care. We need more providers, and this sort of facility allows us that opportunity.”

Baxley said that the goal is for the facility to be completed and seeing patients by the end of 2026.

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Natalie Osterman, Greater Bluffton Chamber of Commerce CEO and Tricia Evegan, Director of Nursing Supervisors and Float Pool at Beaufort Memorial
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Lynsey Rini, Megan Mack, Victoria Tinsley, Hilary Wilder, Katie Hucks
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Alice Howard, Chairwoman, Beaufort County Council
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Lisa Sulka, former Town of Bluffton Mayor and Larry Toomer, Town of Bluffton Mayor
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Phil Cromer, Mayor of Beaufort; Larry Toomer, Mayor of Bluffton; Harry Williams, Mayor of Hardeeville
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Becky Sprecher, Beaufort Memorial Foundation Vice-Chair, Katie Hucks and Elizabeth Hewell
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Colleen Duerr, RN, Mandy Michels, Shawna Doran, MSN, RN and Ashley Hildreth, RN
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From left to right: Courtney Smith, Associate VP of Operations, Allison Coppage, AVP Corporate Compliance, Privacy & Contracting, Casey Crane, Director of Hospital-Based Physician Services
Kevin Kremer, Emergency Department Director and LeeAnne Smith, Behavioral Health Services Line Director

On May 7, the commemorative groundbreaking event was held on the site of the new hospital, and speakers included Bluffton Mayor Larry Toomer, Beaufort County Council chair Alice Howard (District 4) and vice-chair Anna Maria Tabernick (District 6), chair of Beaufort Memorial Hospital Board of Trustees Bill Himmelsbach and South of Broad Healthcare chair Steve Meyer.

Mayor Toomer acknowledged Beaufort Memorial’s long road to this milestone and welcomed the Bluffton Community Hospital to the growing Bluffton business community.

“This hospital brings healthcare closer to home,” he said. “We appreciate Beaufort Memorial and its perseverance in stepping up to continue to meet the needs of our residents.”

The new hospital in Bluffton will not only benefit patients who live in the southern portion of the county but will increase access to care at Beaufort Memorial’s main hospital campus in Beaufort. Currently, a large percentage of Beaufort Memorial Hospital’s inpatients come from zip codes south of the Broad River. Once the Bluffton Community Hospital opens its doors, the services that these patients travel to Beaufort to receive will be offered in a more convenient location, right in their backyard.

The addition of the new hospital facility will also allow for the recruitment of even more physicians to the market, expanding primary and specialty care services for residents throughout the Lowcountry, not just in Bluffton.

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Russell Baxley, president and CEO of Beaufort Memorial, speaks at the Bluffton Community Hospital grounbreaking ceremony
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Community members and leaders listen to remarks at the Bluffton Community Hospital groundbreaking ceremony
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Anna (Tab) Tabernik, Beaufort County Council District 6, Alice Howard, Beaufort County Council Chairwoman, and Larry Toomer, Town of Bluffton Mayor
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Russell Baxley, president and CEO of Beaufort Memorial speaks to the crowd at the Bluffton Community Hospital groundbreaking ceremony
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Larry Toomer, Town of Bluffton Mayor
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Community leaders and members, Beaufort Memorial employees, construction and project management teams, and others listen to remarks at the Bluffton Community Hospital groundbreaking ceremony.
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Community leaders and members, Beaufort Memorial employees, construction and project management teams, and others listen to remarks at the Bluffton Community Hospital groundbreaking ceremony.
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Steve Meyer, chairman of the South of Broad Healthcare Board, makes his remarks at the Bluffton Community Hospital groundbreaking cermeony
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Bill Himmelsbach, chairman of the Beaufort Memorial Hospital Board, makes his remarks at the Bluffton Community Hospital groundbrekaing ceremony.
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Anna Maria "Tab" Tabernik, Beaufort County Council District 6, makes her remarks at the Bluffton Community Hospital groundbreaking ceremony.
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Larry Toomer, Town of Bluffton Mayor, makes his remarks at the Bluffton Community Hospital groundbreaking ceremony.
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Russell Baxley, president and CEO of Beaufort Memorial, Steve Meyer, chairman of South of Broad Healthcare, and Bill Himmelsbach, chairman of Beaufort Memorial Hospital Board
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Anna Maria "Tab" Tabernik, Beaufort County Council District 6, and Alice Howard, Beaufort County Council Chairwoman
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Alice Howard, Chairwoman of Beaufort County Council makes her remarks at the Bluffton Community Hospital groundbreaking ceremony.
Beaufort Memorial Hospital, board and community leaders 'break ground' on the Bluffton Community Hospital.
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Beaufort Memorial Bluffton Community Hospital groundbreaking ceremony on May 7, 2025
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Beaufort Memorial Bluffton Community Hospital groundbreaking ceremony on May 7, 2025
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Beaufort Memorial Bluffton Community Hospital groundbreaking ceremony on May 7, 2025
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Beaufort Memorial Bluffton Community Hospital groundbreaking ceremony on May 7, 2025
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Beaufort Memorial Bluffton Community Hospital groundbreaking ceremony on May 7, 2025
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Beaufort Memorial Bluffton Community Hospital groundbreaking ceremony on May 7, 2025
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Chris Ketchie, Vice President of Physician Services at Beaufort Memorial

“This is a huge step forward for patients across the entire county. The addition of a hospital in Bluffton will make it easier for Bluffton patients to receive care closer to home,” said Baxley. “For patients who live north of the Broad River, this shift will increase the availability for critical healthcare services at the hospital’s main campus in Beaufort.”

The 90,000-square-foot hospital is rightsized for the Bluffton community, Baxley said, and Tabernick noted that in its first year, the hospital would bring 250 jobs to the area.

The hospital, while conveniently located for Bluffton patients and current Beaufort Memorial staff members who brave the traffic for their daily commute to Beaufort, also opens career and advancement opportunities for nursing talent in the Lowcountry. Beaufort Memorial has been working to develop new avenues to encourage and graduate more nurses to work in this community, partnering with local nursing schools at the University of South Carolina-Beaufort (USCB) and the Technical College of the Lowcountry. These partnerships strengthen the workforce pipeline and pool of nursing talent in the region – a region that, in a few short years, will include career opportunities at the Bluffton Community Hospital.

In the southern part of the county, Beaufort Memorial is moving forward on several expansion projects this spring, including breaking ground on a combined emergency room and urgent care facility on southern Hilton Head Island and the kickoff of construction on LiveWell Terrace by BMH, an affordable workforce housing project in collaboration with the Town of Bluffton, Beaufort County and Woda Cooper Companies.

North of the Broad River, the hospital is currently undergoing several additional expansion projects, including a multi-stage, $24 million renovation to the Surgical Pavilion on the main campus in Beaufort, the addition of a crisis stabilization unit in the hospital’s emergency room and renovations to the state-of-the-art angiography suite in the Beaufort Memorial Cochrane Heart Center.

For more information on Beaufort Memorial’s ongoing expansion projects throughout the county, visit BeaufortMemorial.org/ExpandingAccess.

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Breaking Bluffton Ground: Beaufort Memorial Kicks Off Construction of Bluffton Community Hospital