Roper St. Francis Healthcare will move Roper Hospital off the Charleston peninsula, where it has cared for patients for 165 years, the health system announced Wednesday.

The move is the centerpiece of Roper St. Francis Healthcare 2030, a 10-year strategic plan. The health system said it needs to relocate the hospital so patients can more easily get care closer to where they live and work, and so the new building can better withstand floods, hurricanes and earthquakes.

Where the hospital will go has not been announced. President and CEO Dr. Jeffrey DiLisi said he expects to name a new location in the coming weeks.

“Today, I make this promise that whether you live in downtown Charleston or the farthest reaches of Berkeley, Dorchester and Charleston counties, Roper St. Francis Healthcare will be a short drive away to serve your health care needs,” DiLisi said in the health system’s announcement.

Half a billion dollars either way

The 332-bed Roper Hospital sits on Calhoun Street between Jonathan Lucas Street and Courtenay Drive, in a medical district that has flooded for decades during heavy rain and high tides, The Post and Courier reported. The newspaper said the hospital system has already spent $9 million on projects to keep generators running and patients safe even if a major hurricane hits.

DiLisi, who became CEO about 11 months ago, said he was charged from the start with finding a way forward. Over the past year, hospital leaders weighed the cost of upgrading the hospital where it stands against building a new one somewhere else, he told the newspaper.

“Either one, you’re talking about half a billion dollars,” he said.

The leaders chose the option they said would cause the least disruption to patients. “I think of someone laying in a hospital bed while they’re recovering from surgery and jack-hammering going on. It’s not great,” DiLisi said, according to The Post and Courier.

“This is a decision that’s been weighing on the organization for a long time,” he said. “We’ve got new buildings all around us. Roper has wonderful tradition, but I will say it’s not new. It needed a lot of work.”

He also pointed to where the region’s people now live. “Charleston has got 850,000 people in the metropolitan area now and if you look at where the middle of Charleston is, in that whole metropolitan area, I would argue it’s not right here (on the peninsula),” he said.

DiLisi said the capital plan is still being finalized and would not say what will happen to the current building or whether the system plans to sell it. He said he would like the new hospital to open within five years.

The new building will be Roper Hospital’s fourth location since it opened downtown in 1856, according to Roper St. Francis.

The rest of the plan

The 2030 plan has five parts, the health system said:

  • Expanding Roper St. Francis Berkeley Hospital and its services, and buying land where large numbers of residents live, such as the former Miller Cadillac property near Johnnie Dodds Boulevard and Mathis Ferry Road in Mount Pleasant, which the system bought this week.
  • Switching to a new electronic medical record system, Epic.
  • Expanding service lines such as cancer care and orthopedics.
  • Working on finances, talent management and processes to improve efficiency.
  • Improving care and reducing costs for employers and large groups of patients, such as those who qualify for Medicare.

Many pieces of the plan will need approval through the state Department of Health and Environmental Control’s certificate of need program, and competing hospital systems have pushed back on such plans in the past, The Post and Courier reported.

“Our 2030 strategic plan is bold, ambitious and, together, it’s possible,” said Dr. Brian Cuddy, a neurosurgeon and chairman of the Roper St. Francis board.

Reaction downtown

Charleston Mayor John Tecklenburg said he had discussed the move with DiLisi and understood the hospital system’s need for an updated facility. “We readily all recognize the hospital district is most vulnerable” to rising seas, Tecklenburg said, according to the newspaper. He said drainage projects and a proposed sea wall would help protect the city.

Former Mayor Joe Riley said he disagreed with Roper’s decision, but that it was the system’s choice. “I think the city of Charleston has been and will continue to make investments so that the city can withstand storms and flooding,” he said.

Dr. Pat Cawley, CEO of MUSC Health, said the Medical University of South Carolina had tentatively planned to build its own replacement hospital along Courtenay Drive but might be interested in the Roper property if it becomes available.

“I do think this will result in MUSC leadership and Roper leadership sitting down and talking about what this means,” Cawley said. He said MUSC will stay downtown. “We’re not going to leave,” he said.

Roper St. Francis, owned jointly by Bon Secours Mercy Health and the Medical Society of South Carolina, also operates Bon Secours St. Francis Hospital in West Ashley, Roper St. Francis Mount Pleasant Hospital and Roper St. Francis Berkeley Hospital.