The Medical University of South Carolina’s Board of Trustees voted Friday to begin planning and building a cancer hospital in downtown Charleston, a project meant to help Hollings Cancer Center reach the National Cancer Institute’s highest designation.

The hospital will provide inpatient and outpatient cancer services under one roof, MUSC said. Plans include inpatient and outpatient surgery, a step-down unit, stem cell transplants, dedicated cancer imaging, pathology and lab services, chemotherapy and infusion, radiation therapy, a pharmacy, phase 1 clinical trials, supportive care and a cancer urgent care.

“This represents a transformative leap forward for patients across South Carolina who depend on world-class cancer care,” said Dr. Raymond DuBois, director of Hollings Cancer Center, in MUSC’s announcement.

There is no estimated cost yet, The Post and Courier reported. The hospital is expected to be finished within five years, according to MUSC.

Where it will go

The hospital will sit in the area bordering Ashley Avenue and Sabin Street, on land now occupied by the Rutledge Tower annex, an energy plant and surface parking, and will extend from Ashley Avenue to Rutledge Avenue, MUSC said.

Because the site is essentially a parking lot, work on the hospital can start before services move out of Rutledge Tower, Dr. Patrick Cawley, CEO of MUSC Health, told The Post and Courier. He said the site is better than the alternative MUSC had considered because it is closer to the main hospital, where cancer patients go for intensive care or certain neurosurgery.

The hospital will likely have 50 to 100 inpatient beds and will also house outpatient treatment, which makes up most cancer care, Cawley told the newspaper.

“What we want to do is pull it all together in one,” he said.

A second building on Calhoun

Trustees also approved planning and construction of a medical office building with clinics and an outpatient surgery center at 334 Calhoun St., MUSC said. It will replace the services now in the 12-story Rutledge Tower at 135 Rutledge Ave., which houses primary care and specialty clinics, outpatient operating rooms and faculty offices. MUSC expects the building to open by 2028.

The 334 Calhoun site, the former Charleston Center, had been Charleston County’s medical services building before the county sold it to a developer for $19.5 million in March 2022, The Post and Courier reported. MUSC Health bought it for the same amount in late December 2024, according to property records cited by the newspaper. That site had also been considered for the cancer hospital, Cawley said.

Rutledge Tower will be renovated for other purposes once its clinical services move, he said.

The bid for top status

South Carolina has no NCI Comprehensive Cancer Center, the institute’s top designation, unlike neighboring North Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee, The Post and Courier reported. There are 57 such centers in the country. Hollings is an NCI-designated clinical cancer center, the rung below, and the only NCI-designated cancer center in South Carolina.

Hollings plans to apply for comprehensive status in its next grant renewal cycle in 2028, according to the newspaper. Its renewal last year brought nearly $11 million in a five-year grant.

“Our new facility will significantly expand access to advanced cancer services,” DuBois said, adding that it would help propel Hollings toward comprehensive status.

To reach that level, the center will need to deepen and broaden its research, train more cancer researchers and doctors, expand community outreach and show it is improving patient outcomes, DuBois told the newspaper. Hollings has reached $26.2 million in NCI grants and is working toward $30 million by the time it applies, he said. Moving clinical services into the new hospital would also free lab space in the current Hollings building to recruit more researchers.

Who pays

State legislators allocated an additional $5 million to support the push for comprehensive status, bringing the state’s total investment to $15 million, MUSC said. The Post and Courier reported that the $15 million would come next fiscal year if the money in current budget proposals is approved.

Board Chairman Charles Schulze said the board sees an urgent need to expand and modernize MUSC’s cancer facilities. “The goal here is to have something that rivals the top cancer facilities in the nation so no one has to leave South Carolina for cancer care,” he said.

Dr. Don Johnson, who chairs the board’s Hollings committee, told The Post and Courier the hospital should rival M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

MUSC is also expanding cancer care outside Charleston. MUSC and Hollings recently announced a cancer center in Florence, and a clinic in Nexton in Summerville began seeing patients this week, the newspaper reported.

“We have to have a presence across the state,” MUSC President Dr. David Cole said.