Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System is putting $325 million into a new heart and vascular hospital, the first freestanding facility of its kind in the Upstate, with construction planned in front of the existing Heart Center, which is also slated for renovations. The project calls for a 240,996-square-foot building with 104 new beds, including 90 acute-care beds and 14 coronary care unit beds, plus 24 catheterization lab pre- and post-procedure beds and expanded diagnostic testing space. Patient services are expected to begin in 2030.
According to FOX Carolina News, the health system announced the investment this week. The new facility will rise directly in front of the existing Heart Center off Serpentine Drive, as detailed by Upstate Business Journal. The project also includes a new central power plant on the Spartanburg campus to accommodate future growth across the health system.
Bonds Cover the Cost, Not County Taxpayers
One week before Spartanburg Regional made its announcement, the Spartanburg County Council voted unanimously to authorize the health system to issue up to $475 million in bonds, according to The Post and Courier. The health system, not county taxpayers, holds full responsibility for repaying that debt, with the county acting only as a conduit issuer for the nonprofit system.
System leaders told the paper that the existing Heart Center was built in 1988 to handle roughly 25 years of local growth, but rapid population increases and demographic shifts across Upstate South Carolina have pushed the facility beyond its physical capacity nearly 40 years later. Spartanburg Regional serves a multi-county Upstate catchment area, and the strain described by those leaders is part of what is driving the new construction.
A Legacy Dating Back Nearly Four Decades
When Spartanburg Medical Center opened its original 95-bed Regional Heart Center in 1988, it became the first medical facility in the Carolinas to consolidate cardiac prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation under a single roof, per Wikipedia. That 1988 opening brought the main medical center's total capacity to 588 beds. The new heart and vascular hospital would mark the system's next major leap in cardiac care nearly four decades later.
The project also represents a first for the Upstate region specifically. Prisma Health Heart Hospital in Columbia, which marked its 20th anniversary in February, has served as South Carolina's only freestanding hospital dedicated exclusively to cardiovascular care, according to coverage highlighted by Prisma Health. Spartanburg Regional's facility would become the first dedicated heart hospital built specifically to serve the Upstate.
State Deregulation Clears a Path for Expansion
The timing lines up with a broader shift in South Carolina's regulatory landscape. The state enacted Senate Bill 164 in May 2023 to phase out Certificate of Need requirements for hospitals by January 1, 2027, a change that immediately eliminated CON requirements for most medical services and non-hospital facilities and has reduced regulatory barriers for health systems planning major expansions, according to CSG South.
The project focuses on expanding cardiovascular care in South Carolina.
Part of a Larger Capital Campaign
The heart hospital is not Spartanburg Regional's only recent major project. It follows a new Union Medical Center that was built in February 2025, centralizing inpatient and outpatient services in a modernized facility, as reported by American Healthcare & Hospitals Management.
Questions remain about how construction leading up to the 2030 opening will affect traffic and daily operations along Serpentine Drive, and how Spartanburg Regional intends to staff the new hospital with specialized cardiology personnel amid a national shortage of healthcare workers. Neither issue has yet been addressed in detail by the health system, leaving those specifics unresolved for now.
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