Mercy broke ground on a new hospital campus April 24 in a fast-growing suburb of St. Louis.
The nearly $650 million Mercy Hospital Wentzville is Missouri's first new acute care hospital campus in nearly a decade. Mercy is based in Chesterfield, Missouri.
Crews have been preparing the land and working on a centralized utility plant. Construction is expected to take four years.
Plans for the hospital include 75 inpatient acute care beds and a 26-bed emergency department with two trauma areas and four behavioral health rooms. The campus will offer inpatient and outpatient care, including cardiovascular, cancer and orthopedic surgery and specialty options as well as outpatient imaging, diagnostic and treatment services.
Mercy credited the Sisters of Mercy for its vision for the 60-acre site, which the system purchased nearly 20 years ago. Similarly, in the late 1950s the Sisters of Mercy bought an apple orchard in St. Louis County, and many thought the spot was too remote for patients. That orchard is the site of the Mercy Hospital St. Louis campus, which opened in 1963 and is now central to residents.
"The sisters have always seen beyond what is — to what could be," Steve Mackin, Mercy president and CEO, said in a statement. "Mercy Wentzville is the next chapter in that legacy — bringing health and hope to one of the fastest-growing communities in our region as envisioned nearly two decades ago."
Mercy is working with CannonDesign for architecture and design and with McCarthy Building Companies to manage the construction process.