After several years of setbacks and delays, Baptist Memorial Health Care Corp. should begin construction this summer on an emergency facility near the Interstate 40 and the Arlington exit.

The freestanding location, developed in partnership with Regional One Health, will feature eight patient rooms; CT scan, X-ray and ultrasound imaging technology; physician offices and a helipad. Construction should take about a year with the tentative opening date for completion by April 2022.

“As we think about April 2022, we’re very hopeful that this will come online right at a right time, as we’re administering (COVID) vaccine and taking precautions,” said Zach Chandler, Baptist executive vice president and chief strategy officer, expressing optimism that life could return to normal at that time.

Baptist originally submitted a certificate of need application for the Arlington emergency department in May 2017, but it was denied along with a competing request from Saint Francis Hospital. In March 2019, the state granted Baptist’s appeal of the decision. Legal and state review steps were completed last fall.

“Going through this process for the past four to five years, with the trips that we took to Nashville and the meetings with Baptist, it’s been an eye-opening experience with the state’s certificate of need process. But it’s also been one that’s going to be very rewarding for the community,” said Arlington Mayor Mike Wissman.

Over the next several months, the town’s various development-related boards will review the site plan before the project eventually is considered by the Board of Mayor and Aldermen.

Physician offices, including primary care and specialists, are being added to the original plans for a 13,000-square-foot building, bringing the new project to 35,000 square feet. The project was estimated at $10 million in 2019, and Chandler expects that estimate to increase, but he is unsure of the total cost now.

Baptist expects the campus, including the freestanding ER, imaging center and physician offices, to initially employ approximately 50 people.

Freestanding emergency departments are a new concept in the state, and Baptist officials looked at similar facilities in other parts of the country. They determined that growing communities, like Arlington, need emergency care. Adding to the need in the region are the closing of Haywood County’s hospital in 2018 and Fayette County’s Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare hospital in 2015.

“It’s great for the town, but it’s also just great for the region because this will be the highest level of emergency care between Jackson and Bartlett,” said Wissman, who sees the need for more emergency services firsthand as an EMT for the Memphis Fire Department. “We know with sprawl as communities grow and as people move out farther and farther that seconds matter in medical care.”

The Arlington project represents Phase 1 of Baptist’s Arlington plans for the 80-plus acre parcel the hospital system purchased in 2006.

“We view this as a very strategic location just because of access,” said Chandler, who pointed out drive times to southern Tipton County, Haywood County, northern Fayette County and northeastern Shelby County. “It’s very much a central point, and we view (the site) as a real gateway entry point off of I-40 coming into Arlington.”

Chandler said in the first year, officials expect 6,000 to 7,000 visits at the new Arlington facility, hopefully taking some pressure off Baptist Memorial Hospital-Memphis at Interstate 240 and Walnut Grove.

But the new medical campus also should serve as a catalyst for retail and commercial growth in Arlington. It has quick access onto Interstate 40 and the Tenn. 385 loop around the outside of Shelby County, plus close proximity to U.S. 64 and 70.

“I think we’ve seen what (Tenn.) 385 is going to eventually do to Shelby County,” Wissman said “It’s going to become very similar to the 240 loop many years down the road.”