Flaget Memorial Hospital breaks ground on $7.8 million medical office building

BARDSTOWN, Ky. (Oct. 18, 2012) — Flaget Memorial Hospital, a part of KentuckyOne Health, broke ground Oct. 2 on a $7.8 million medical office building dedicated to the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth, who founded the hospital in 1951. When finished, the SCN Medical Office Building will be a two-story structure that contains approximately 32,000 square feet.

Tentative plans call for locating the Flaget Center for Orthopedics on the first floor, along with outpatient rehabilitation services. The top floor will house physician offices.

“Creating space for more physicians will help us recruit them,” said Sue Downs, Flaget president and CEO.

The building project will create a redesign of flow around the Flaget campus, improving traffic patterns and safety, and increasing parking spaces. The new building will be connected to the hospital’s surgery discharge door via a covered walkway. It will feature a dropoff canopy so that people can pull a car underneath.

The new office building will be constructed behind Flaget’s Serenity Garden, but will not disturb the garden’s park-like setting, Downs said.

“In fact, plans are in place to expand the Serenity Garden,” she said.

The new structure has been dedicated to the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth, who not only opened Flaget’s doors, but who contributed the largest amount of any funding source to create the new hospital.

“We are naming the building to honor our foundresses, the wonderful Sisters who had the vision, courage and determination to start a hospital in Nelson County that would save lives and preserve health for generations to come,” Downs said. “The Sisters not only ran and staffed every unit in the new facility; they even lived in the building.”

The SCNs eventually trained laypeople to take over the running of Flaget, “but their ideals and their compassion are still evident in every department of the current facility.”

The planned completion date for the medical office building is July of 2013. Once this new building fills up, Downs said, “there is plenty of room on the hospital’s campus for a third medical office building when the need arises. We are expanding to meet the growing needs of our community. Thanks to the SCNs, citizens of Nelson and surrounding counties have excellent medical care close to home.”