BETHLEHEM TOWNSHIP, Pa. — St. Luke’s University Health Network opened its $252 million Heart Hospital at the Anderson Campus on Friday, adding 140 beds and nearly doubling the hospital’s inpatient capacity.
The five-story, roughly 355,000-square-foot building is the largest construction project in the network’s more than 150-year history by both cost and size, according to St. Luke’s. About 200 people attended the ribbon-cutting.
The opening is the biggest expansion yet at the 15-year-old campus. It gives the Bethlehem-based network a dedicated cardiac hospital in a market it shares with Lehigh Valley Health Network, which became part of Philadelphia-based Jefferson Health in 2024.
The building includes four dedicated heart operating rooms, one hybrid operating room, 10 interventional suites for cardiac catheterization, electrophysiology, and interventional radiology, and a cardiac intensive care unit. It also has heart-lung machines and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, or ECMO, machines for long-term heart and lung support.
“The new St. Luke’s Heart Hospital stands as an essential expression of what American ingenuity, innovation and determination can achieve,” said St. Luke’s President and CEO Rick Anderson.
“This Heart Hospital represents one of the most significant investments in cardiovascular care our region has ever seen,” said Dr. Raymond Durkin, chairman of St. Luke’s cardiovascular services.
Construction began in 2024. St. Luke’s said Friday that the project employed more than 1,000 skilled workers. When the network announced the October opening in August, it put that figure at “hundreds.”
The network said the hospital will support hundreds of permanent jobs but gave no specific number.
St. Luke’s also said the project was completed at a relatively low per-square-foot cost by industry standards, without citing a benchmark. The $252 million total works out to about $710 per square foot.
The network said the hospital will serve as an international show site for Siemens cardiac imaging. The building also includes teaching space for a new cardiac fellowship program, a larger cafeteria and a rooftop helipad that St. Luke’s said will speed patient transport to the campus trauma center.
St. Luke’s said that the trauma center earned the highest level of accreditation this month. The Pennsylvania Trauma Systems Foundation, which accredits the state’s trauma centers, granted the campus Level II status in 2021.
“The new Heart Hospital is a transformative investment in the future of health care for our region, nearly doubling the number of inpatient beds at the Anderson Campus to meet a growing demand for St. Luke’s high-quality services,” said Ed Nawrocki, president of St. Luke’s East Region and the Anderson Campus.
The 500-acre campus overlooking the Lehigh River opened in 2011. St. Luke’s describes it as Pennsylvania’s first new full-service acute care hospital in four decades.
The campus added a $26 million Specialty Pavilion in 2017 and a $90 million Women & Babies Pavilion in 2020. Together, those three projects total $368 million.