Four-story tower brings new and expanded services, keeping more patients in Berkeley County for the care they need
Roper St. Francis Healthcare Berkeley Hospital is doubling in size and strengthening its reach with the opening of a new four-story tower that expands capacity, adds specialty care and reflects a bold vision for the future of healthcare across the Lowcountry.
The facility at 100 Callen Blvd., which opened just six years ago as Berkeley County’s first full-service hospital in 45 years, quickly became one of the region’s busiest. The 94,000-square-foot tower is the largest milestone yet in the hospital’s expansion to meet growing community needs and reflects Roper St. Francis Healthcare’s 2030 Strategic Plan to optimize its footprint and expand access to care across the Lowcountry. The phased opening begins on Nov. 3. Additional units will be added through early 2026, lifting the hospital’s total capacity from 50 to 100 beds.
“Since we opened, we’ve seen the tremendous demand for care in Berkeley County,” Chief Administrative Officer Patrick Bosse said. “This new tower brings the capacity we always knew this community needed and ensures families can get advanced care where they live.”
WHAT THE TOWER INCLUDES
The tower was designed to blend seamlessly with the six-year-old hospital’s already modern architecture while emphasizing natural light, open spaces and private rooms.
It expands care across multiple units and service lines:
- Intensive care: The ICU has doubled from six to 12 beds and now offers advanced modalities such as continuous renal replacement therapy (CRRT).
- Intermediate care: A new 16-bed unit allows the hospital to keep higher-acuity cardiology and stroke patients who previously would have been transferred.
- Medical-surgical care: A 30-bed medical-surgical unit nearly triples the hospital’s prior capacity, giving more space for recovering patients.
- Observation: The former ICU was repurposed into an eight-bed observation unit for chest pain and other short-stay patients, easing Emergency Department bottlenecks.
- Emergency and imaging: Expanded areas on the first floor improve patient flow and reduce wait times.
Together, these additions expand telemetry capability from 17 to 44 monitored beds, a game-changer for keeping more patients in Berkeley County.
EXPANDED SERVICE LINES
The tower also creates room for new specialties and growth in existing ones, including:
- Neurosciences: Neurosurgical services launching for the first time at Berkeley Hospital in November.
- Surgical services: Adding minimally invasive colorectal procedures.
- Orthopedics: Expanded support for total joint replacement patients.
- Cardiovascular care: Strengthened by the recent opening of the Heart & Vascular Center on campus.
- Nephrology: Expanded support for higher-acuity kidney patients.
“This expansion allows us to keep patients here who previously had to travel elsewhere,” said Jennifer Crawford, Berkeley Hospital’s Chief Nursing Officer. “Families can now stay close to home and still receive advanced treatment for higher-acuity needs.”
The tower complements a string of high-tech investments across the Berkeley Hospital campus, including wound care and hyperbaric chambers, mammography and bone density testing, a new CTCA scanner and future PET-CT stress testing at the Heart & Vascular Center.
“Many of the services we’re adding at Berkeley Hospital are true firsts for this community,” Bosse said. “That’s what makes this milestone so meaningful.
To staff the new units, 380 teammates — nurses, physicians, techs and support staff — have joined the hospital. Many teammates trained at other Roper St. Francis Healthcare facilities before moving to Berkeley Hospital, bringing expertise in critical care, nephrology and neuro-spine services.
“This was a systemwide effort,” Crawford said. “Teammates across all our hospitals have trained our new hires so we could be ready to care for patients on day one.”
The bed tower is part of a broader expansion that has already delivered a new annex wing, upgraded imaging, a larger pharmacy, wound care services and a refreshed main lobby. A community-wide grand opening celebration is planned for spring 2026.
“This project reflects the future of Roper St. Francis Healthcare,” Bosse said. “We’re growing with our community and bringing services that people used to travel for right into their backyard.”
About Roper St. Francis Healthcare
As a not-for-profit healthcare system, Roper St. Francis Healthcare chooses purpose over profits by putting extra money back into the system to help meet the health needs of the Charleston community. The healthcare system features four flagship hospitals: Roper Hospital, Bon Secours St. Francis Hospital, Mount Pleasant Hospital and Berkeley Hospital. In an emergency, the healthcare system offers six strategically placed emergency departments. With nearly 7,000 teammates, Roper St. Francis Healthcare is the Lowcountry’s largest private employer with more than 1,000 doctors representing almost every medical specialty, and it has earned status as a Great Place to Work. The system has nearly 700 beds and about 120 facilities and services across four counties. Learn more: rsfh.com.