Progress on the 50-bed Riverside Smithfield Hospital slated to open in 2026 is starting to become apparent from the street.
Construction crews recently began erecting the three-story, 200,000-square-foot building’s steel framework. Hospital President Jessica Macalino, in a Feb. 26 Zoom call with The Smithfield Times, said the estimated $100 million investment by Riverside Health Systems in Isle of Wight County is proceeding on schedule and on budget.
“The weather has been really good to us,” she said.
The Times meets with Riverside officials quarterly to provide updates on the hospital’s construction.
The area of the hospital now framed out in steel will eventually house the hospital’s emergency room on its first floor and operating rooms on its second. Due to the building’s size, the pouring of the hospital’s foundation and erection of steel framing is being completed in phases.
All steel columns should be in place by mid-June, Macalino said.
Plans for the hospital call for 34 medical-surgical beds, 10 intensive care unit beds, six obstetric beds, general and intermediate-level neonatal intensive care unit services, four general purpose operating rooms and CT and MRI scanners.