LVHN plans to start construction this spring on new campus

The site, along Hecktown Road, is expected to house a 156,000-square-foot hospital and 61,500-square-foot-medical office building. The estimated cost of construction for both buildings is $68 million, said Ed Dougherty, senior vice president and chief business development office for LVHN, based in Salisbury Township.

Dougherty said LVHN is still working on getting construction approvals from the township but expects to begin building at the site in the spring. LVHN plans to open the hospital and office building in fall 2020.

They are the first pieces of what will be a larger development on 175 acres owned by LVHN in the area. The site for the first two buildings, mainly farmland, covers 59 acres that front Hecktown Road and continue along Newburg Road.

When LVHN first announced the proposed campus in 2016, it included a plan to build an assisted living facility. Dougherty said that could still happen, but not in the immediate future.

“Most health campuses evolve over decades,” Dougherty said.

Right now, the network is focusing on building the hospital and medical office building, he said.

The hospital will be one level while the medical office building will be two stories, he added.

Whiting-Turner Contracting Co. of Upper Macungie Township is the design-build firm working on the project, along with the architect, Erdman, based in Wisconsin.

In 2016, Lower Nazareth Township approved a health care overlay district, which authorizes the construction of a hospital at the location, Dougherty said. The land is zoned light industrial.