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Hoar Construction broke ground on a 54,000-square-foot inpatient rehabilitation hospital in Ooltewah, outside Chattanooga, with the facility scheduled to open in spring 2027.
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The hospital will include 40 beds, including 12 dedicated to brain injury patients, along with therapy gyms, an activities-of-daily-living suite and outdoor rehabilitation amenities.
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The project adds to Hoar’s healthcare portfolio and will require careful site coordination because the hospital is being built in a wetland area.
A new 54,000-square-foot inpatient rehabilitation hospital broke ground June 2 in Ooltewah, Tenn., with Hoar Construction serving as general contractor on the project, according to The Chattanoogan.
The facility is being developed by The Sanders Trust, with Lifepoint Health as owner in partnership with CommonSpirit. Once complete, the hospital is expected to expand access to specialized rehabilitation care in the Chattanooga region.
Project officials said the hospital will house 40 inpatient beds, including 12 reserved for patients with brain injuries.
The design also includes features intended to support both therapy and day-to-day recovery, including:
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Multidisciplinary therapy gyms
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An activities-of-daily-living suite with a washer and dryer, kitchen setup, and bathtub
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A courtyard with a bocce ball court, pickleball court, and chipping green
A separate café for staff, patients, and visitors is also planned as part of the project.
A rendering of the 54,000-square-foot inpatient rehabilitation hospital moving forward in Ooltewah, Tenn., with Hoar Construction serving as general contractor on the project. Image: The Chattanoogan, Hoar Construction
Mike Hubbard, a project manager at Hoar, told The Chattanoogan the groundbreaking represents a major step toward delivering upgraded rehabilitation services to the area.
He said the team is focused on building a facility designed to support patient recovery and independence while meeting the safety and quality standards required in healthcare construction.
Complex Site Work Shapes Early Construction
Beyond the building program itself, the project presents notable site challenges. Officials said the hospital is being constructed on a wetland area, meaning Hoar will need to bring in dirt to establish the building pad before vertical construction can advance.
That condition adds complexity to early planning and requires close coordination to manage environmental constraints while keeping the schedule on track.
Hoar said it is using technology to improve project coordination and field visibility during construction. That includes OpenSpace AI with 360-degree cameras to map and monitor progress, as well as building information modeling (BIM) to create 3D site models for planning and design coordination.
Additional project partners include Earl Swensson Associates as architect, Enfinity Engineering as MEP engineer and Knoxville-based Crunk Engineering as civil engineer.
Building on Healthcare Experience
Hoar said it has completed nearly $1.5 billion in healthcare projects over the past 10 years, underscoring the firm’s long-standing presence in the sector.
The contractor previously partnered with Lifepoint Health on the 62,000-square-foot Northeast Georgia Rehabilitation Institute in Gainesville, Ga. More recently, the company completed a $19 million expansion and renovation project at Crisp Regional Hospital in Cordele, Ga.
That experience could prove significant on the Ooltewah job, where site conditions, specialized patient spaces and the demands of healthcare construction will require tight execution from groundbreaking through completion.
If the current schedule holds, the rehabilitation hospital will open in spring 2027, adding a new piece of healthcare capacity to the Chattanooga-area market.
For Chattanooga-area patients, the new hospital is expected to add a dedicated rehabilitation option with features built around patient activity and independence rather than traditional acute-care layouts.
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