There will more of Lexington Medical Center very soon.

The hospital’s $400 million expansion project will open Tuesday at Sunset Boulevard and I-26 in West Columbia.

It will add a 10-floor tower, 545,000 square feet. There are: 71 new patient beds (for a total of 485); eight new operating rooms, including two open-heart surgery rooms; 20 ergonomic bassinets; and private rooms in special care nursery.

The new North Tower is the largest hospital expansion in state history, according to Department of Health and Environmental Control records.
A 950-vehicle parking garage has been completed on the LMC campus, too.

More than 3,300 babies are born at LMC each year. Since it opened, more than 100,000 babies have been delivered at LMC. To celebrate those births, the hospital has collected more than 4,000 photos of babies born there throughout the years. The photos are in a mosaic in the new tower, at the main entrance. Beginning Tuesday, the public is allowed to come in a see the baby images.

LMC’s emergency room received about 89,000 visits and the hospital’s physicians treated 1.3 million patients in 2018.

The hospital, that opened in 1971, employs 7,000, and is listed as Lexington County’s largest job-provider.