Northside Hospital Cherokee, together with Realty Trust Group and Healthpeak, has started construction on a new six-story, 150,000-square-foot medical office building. The groundbreaking ceremony took place Thursday morning and marks a significant addition to the hospital’s facilities.
The new building will offer a range of outpatient healthcare services and physician practices. These will include heart care, bariatrics and general surgery, orthopedics and sports medicine, a high-risk cancer program, ENT, and primary care.
Billy Hayes, CEO of Northside Cherokee, highlighted the hospital’s progress during the ceremony. He reflected on the facility’s earlier days and the changes over the past two decades. “It served its purpose, but what we saw when I came in ’04 is that most people who live in Cherokee County (and points north) chose to go to Atlanta for health care,” Hayes said. “I don’t think we had the services that we needed to meet the needs of the community. I don’t think we had the culture that we needed to understand and serve our community.”
He added that the hospital has seen significant transformation. “The road was bumpy for a while. People started buying in, and we saw the community start trusting us,” Hayes said. “We started getting great physicians. We have a wonderful medical staff. We had about 80 physicians on staff in 2004; we’ve got over 1,500 today.
“We had about 200 employees in 2004; we’ve got over 4,000 today.”
Charlie Dickhaus, senior vice president of Realty Trust Group and director of real estate for Northside, noted that this is the largest medical office building the health system has built in the past ten years. He also mentioned the level of physician involvement in the project. “In those eight groups, we had over 40 physicians that individually invested in the project, which I’m happy to say is the highest amount of individual physician participation that we’ve ever had in one of these projects, and we’ve done seven or eight of them in the last 10 years,” Dickhaus said. “I think that really speaks to the commitment that not only Northside has to Cherokee, but also the physicians and what they have in this community as well.”
Dickhaus added that all space in the building has already been leased. “I think that speaks to the growth that’s happened here and the commitment that Northside has to the Cherokee County community,” he said.
The building will dedicate about 40,000 square feet to cardiac and pulmonary services and about 30,000 square feet to surgical specialists. Dickhaus explained that patient experience was a priority in the building’s design.
Local officials and community members attended the event, which signals another major investment by Northside in Cherokee County. Canton Mayor Bill Grant remarked on the hospital’s recent expansion. “It’s just so impressive to witness the growth,” Grant said. “I had to look back at my notes three times and double-check that it was just 2017 when you opened the new hospital, and it seems like it’s been much longer — like it’s been here forever as such an important part of our community.”
The project is scheduled for completion by spring 2027.
