WENTZVILLE — Mercy received the state’s stamp of approval on Monday to build a $650 million hospital campus in Wentzville.
Mercy said the project had received a certificate of need from the state, a layer of oversight intended to rein in unnecessary health care spending. Any organization looking to build a new hospital or nursing home in Missouri has to secure approval from the nine-person, state-level panel.
When Mercy officials announced plans in April to pursue a new 75-bed hospital there, they argued that they want to provide better options to their patients in fast-growing St. Charles, Lincoln and Warren counties.
Mercy runs Lincoln County’s only hospital — a 25-bed facility in Troy — and there are no hospitals in Warren County, per the . Patients sometimes travel an hour from Lincoln and Warren counties to Mercy sites in St. ÑÇÖÞÎÞÂë County, CEO Steve Mackin said earlier this year.
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The new hospital will have a 28-bay emergency department with two trauma bays and 18 observation beds, Mercy said. The campus will offer some specialty services, including cardiovascular, cancer and orthopedics, outpatient imaging, diagnostics, and treatment services.
Population growth in the northwestern corner of the St. ÑÇÖÞÎÞÂë metro area has hospitals embarking on construction projects in St. Charles County. SSM Health recently doubled the size of its emergency room at St. Joseph Hospital in Wentzville, a decision it attributed, in part, to the growing number of patients in the area.
SSM Health has also been building a new 66,000-square-foot outpatient center in O’Fallon, Missouri, expected to open in October.
Mercy’s new, 425,000-square-foot hospital will be the latest in a series of investments by the health system, which in recent years has made hundreds of millions of dollars in upgrades at the former St. Anthony’s Medical Center, now Mercy Hospital South, and acquired hospitals in southeast Missouri.