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Arkansas Heart Starts Work on $55M Bryant Hospital

2 min read

Arkansas Heart Hospital of Little Rock is starting construction on its second hospital — this one in Bryant, set to open in the second half of 2020.

“We are excited to build a second hospital in one of the fastest growing communities in Arkansas,” Arkansas Heart President and COO Drew Jackson said. “This new general acute hospital will provide innovative cardiac care, while also focusing on bariatrics and peripheral artery disease.”

The four-story, 95,485-SF hospital will be located off Highway 5 in Bryant. Plans also call for a two-story, 28,000-SF medical office building. Known as “Arkansas Heart Hospital Encore,” the facility, which will also include a full-service emergency department, adjoins the west side of the Arkansas Bone & Joint Orthopedic Surgery Center at 2010 Active Way.

Arkansas Business first reported on the $55 million project in March, when Bryant Medical Holdings LLC, an affiliate of Arkansas Heart, purchased 7.6 acres from Ronald Holder for $3.2 million. Equipment costs will add another $20 million to the final price tag.

Architectural renderings were released in May.

Relieving Congestion

In an interview with Arkansas Business, CEO Dr. Bruce Murphy said Arkansas Heart needed a new hospital because its Little Rock campus was becoming too congested as a result of its growth.

In 2017, Arkansas Heart began offering weight-loss surgery as a way to fight heart disease and rising obesity rates in Arkansas. Its Bariatric & Metabolic Institute was a hit with patients. In the next 12 months, it is expected to do 500 surgeries, Murphy said.  

“[That] has congested our operating rooms and congested our campus,” Murphy said. “And so we looked for ways to remedy that.”

The hospital started looking for ways to expand about a year ago. Leaders first considered expanding the Little Rock site but it found that it “simply didn’t make sense.”

So they looked to build off campus, and eventually decided “that we should go not too far away, but to the Bryant area in Saline County,” Murphy said. “Part of our business plan there is to move all of our bariatric surgery there.”

The hospital also plans to move all of its peripheral vascular surgery and interventions to the new campus.

“We also will be running a general acute hospital there,” Murphy said. 

The construction cost for the hospital will be about $55 million and the equipment will cost about $20 million.

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