Med Center Health turns dirt on High Street Tower project
Published 2:00 pm Thursday, June 13, 2024
- University of Kentucky Bowling Green Obstetrics and Gynecology Residency Program resident Dr. Delaney Bieber speaks during a groundbreaking ceremony for the new 5-story High Street Tower to be built at the Med Center Bowling Green campus that will house the fourth largest OB program in Kentucky and provide expanded space for many of the hospital’s departments on Thursday, June 13, 2024. The 180-000-square-foot expansion is expected to open in the summer of 2026, marking the 100th anniversary of Med Center Health. (Grace Ramey McDowell/grace.ramey@bgdailynews.com)
Midday heat enveloped a crowd of Med Center Health employees, local civic leaders and elected officials Thursday as MCH broke ground on a High Street Tower health care facility.
“This is a remarkable day but, more importantly, this is a great day for southcentral Kentucky,” said Connie Smith, president and CEO of Med Center Health.
The $100 million, 180,000-square-foot facility will represent the largest single investment in MCH’s 98-year history.
The five-story building will feature two floors of expanded space for women and children’s health services, including labor and delivery, postpartum care, the region’s only Level III neonatal intensive care unit and the fourth largest obstetrics program in Kentucky.
Other floors will expand services such as emergency care, endoscopy and surgery. Dr. Jeffery Nemec, a physician and director of the OB/GYN program at The Medical Center at Bowling Green, described the facility as “a landmark event.”
“I’ve been here 26 years, so I’ve seen, right from the day I walked through the door, growth and expansion of the level of care we’ve been able to provide,” Nemec said. “With this, we just continue moving in that direction.”
Labor and delivery services are currently housed inside The Medical Center’s main building, and Nemec said issues have come up with space.
“There are times that we’ve had laboring patients out the hallway because we did not have physical rooms for them to be in,” Nemec said. “The fact that we are going to have that added space will allow us to continue caring for the patients we have … . It’s overall going to be just a wonderful thing for women’s health care.”
MCH recently announced it had acquired the Logan Memorial Hospital in Russellville, which will become the organization’s seventh hospital in the region. The acquisition is anticipated for July 1.
The High Street Tower is expected to open in the summer of 2026, coinciding with MCH’s 100th anniversary.
