The Medical University of South Carolina opened a six-story building for its College of Health Professions on Oct. 9. Two months earlier, crews set the last steel beam on a $175 million home for its College of Medicine, due to open in late 2027.

Before it opens, Dr. David Cole will retire as president. The job his successor takes will not look like the one Cole has held since 2014.

MUSC employs about 17,000 people in the Charleston region, according to December 2025 data from the Charleston Regional Development Alliance. On the alliance’s list of public-sector employers, only Joint Base Charleston, with 24,900 military and civilian jobs, ranks higher.

MUSC says an independent 2024 study found it generates about $7.5 billion a year in economic activity in the tri-county region and supports 38,380 jobs there. Statewide, MUSC puts its direct workforce at more than 23,000.

What opened Oct. 9

The new building, called CHP-D, is the college’s fourth, MUSC said. Its first four floors opened to students earlier this year, and the fifth and sixth floors were finished recently. It holds classrooms, labs and simulation space for students in occupational therapy, physical therapy, speech-language pathology and rehabilitation research.

Those floors house the RENEW Center, a rehabilitation research center of about 24,000 square feet, according to MUSC.

MUSC also recognized a $10 million gift from Tina and Ricky Doscher, the largest in the college’s history. The lobby is named for them.

“CHP-D represents an important investment in the future of health professions education and research,” Zoher Kapasi, the college’s dean, said in MUSC’s announcement.

When Charleston’s Board of Architectural Review approved the building in 2023, WCSC Live 5 called it a $70 million project. Kapasi told the station then that the college had grown 37% since 2018 and was running out of room.

A medical school building rises

On Aug. 14, MUSC marked the topping out of a 186,000-square-foot College of Medicine building, the college’s first dedicated home in more than 100 years, according to MUSC. The university put the cost at $175 million, paid with a mix of public and private money.

Live 5 reported that the building is expected to let MUSC grow its medical school class from 180 to 220 students.

Hal Turner, vice president of Thompson Turner Construction, told ABC News 4 the project was on schedule and that roughly $60 million of it involves local and minority participation.

The next project is larger. In February, MUSC trustees reviewed a $1.115 billion estimate for a new cancer hospital downtown, including about $885 million for construction, Live 5 reported. In September, the station said plans call for a 14-story building of about 600,000 square feet at Ashley Avenue and Calhoun Street.

A different job at the top

Cole, who joined MUSC in 1994, will retire in June 2027 after 13 years as its seventh president, MUSC announced June 29. He will stay on as a professor and surgical oncologist.

“MUSC is, without doubt, a jewel in South Carolina’s crown,” Cole said in the announcement.

Trustee and former board Chairman Dr. James Lemon leads the national search, which MUSC said should conclude next spring. MUSC has retained the search firm Russell Reynolds Associates.

The search committee began interviewing 15 candidates, including several from inside MUSC, on Sept. 10 and 11, the Post and Courier reported.

The winner will take on a narrower role. According to MUSC’s search page, the president will lead the six colleges and work alongside the CEO of MUSC Health, a post held by Dr. Patrick Cawley. The new president will have less of a role running the health system, the Post and Courier reported.

The university’s budgeted operating revenues for fiscal 2027 are $1.24 billion, according to MUSC, while the full enterprise has a $10.1 billion budget.

Board Chairman Charles W. Schulze told the newspaper it would be “very difficult to find one person that can do it all.”

The Executive Committee of MUSC’s Faculty Senate wrote to the search committee warning that separating the roles “could unintentionally weaken one of MUSC’s greatest strategic advantages,” the Post and Courier reported. Schulze said the board will form a Joint Operations Committee to make sure the health system’s support for the academic side does not slip. That support was $315 million last fiscal year, up from $172 million three years earlier, according to the newspaper.

The search has its own price tag. Russell Reynolds will eventually receive a fee equal to 31% of the new president’s total compensation, and MUSC is paying a $375,000 retainer for now, the Post and Courier reported. Cole’s base salary this fiscal year is nearly $1.4 million, according to records the newspaper obtained through a Freedom of Information request.

The hospital side

MUSC Health University Medical Center ranked No. 1 in South Carolina in U.S. News & World Report’s hospital rankings for the 12th straight year, MUSC said Aug. 4.

On Aug. 12, MUSC Health and Cigna agreed to keep MUSC in-network for patients in covered Cigna plans through June 30, 2027. ABC News 4 reported that the two sides still had no long-term contract and that a lapse could have left 30,000 patients facing higher out-of-pocket costs.

Cole’s contract runs through the same date, the Post and Courier reported. The College of Medicine building is scheduled to open a few months later.