Roper St. Francis Healthcare celebrates completion of Roper Hospital’s new building design

Roper St. Francis Healthcare celebrated a major milestone Wednesday with the completion of the building design for the future relocated Roper Hospital campus.

Teammates spent more than 550 hours designing the hospital building and its various rooms, ensuring practical, experience-based feedback from the very people who will care for patients in that space.

“We can’t wait to watch this new hospital blossom,” said President and CEO Joseph DeLeon. “We’ve cultivated the ground, planted the seeds, and now things are taking root. We can’t wait to show off all that our teammates and partners have accomplished in the past few months.”

To mark the occasion, the Roper St. Francis Foundation hosted members of the Roper St. Francis Healthcare and Foundation boards of directors at the former Verizon building on the North Charleston site where the full-scale mock-up rooms have been housed for design input. Board members met with architects, builders and frontline teammates to learn more about the hospital’s design and celebrate the tremendous progress made so far.

The mock-up rooms — including ICU rooms, trauma bays, patient rooms and ED observation rooms — featured QR codes linking to 3D renderings for easy access. Some rooms, such as the mocked-up hybrid operating room, offered virtual reality tours using Oculus goggles.

“Everyone at Roper Hospital has touched this project in one shape or another,” Vice President of Construction-Real Estate and Support Services Charles Fletcher said. “This is such a huge accomplishment for us and directly supports Roper St. Francis Healthcare’s 2030 Strategic Plan goals, such as optimizing our footprint and addressing future clinical needs.”

Since last December, frontline teammates have collaborated with architects and builders, using full-scale models of key rooms to refine layouts. Their real-time feedback has helped optimize electrical outlet placement, storage configurations, seating arrangements and more, ensuring the new hospital is a state-of-the-art facility designed for high-quality patient care and safety.

Teammates from nursing, quality, IT and other departments have played critical roles in shaping the design, making instant adjustments possible to enhance functionality and efficiency.

Meanwhile, the Roper St. Francis Foundation recently launched Imagine: The Campaign for Roper St. Francis Healthcare, a $100 million fundraising initiative that will run through 2030, aligning with and supporting Roper Hospital’s relocation timeline.

“We are already three-quarters of the way toward our goal,” said Dr. Megan Baker, interim president of the Roper St. Francis Foundation and senior vice president and chief operating officer of Roper St. Francis Healthcare. “We’re incredibly grateful for the commitment to our healthcare system’s future. It’s an exciting time to be part of it.”

Demolition work on the site began in late January, clearing structures including a bank and much of a former Amazon facility. An official groundbreaking ceremony is expected in June.