The state has approved WellStar Kennestone Hospital's $93 million expansion, which will make the Marietta hospital Georgia's secondlargest in number of beds.

The tower project will add 140 beds for medical/surgical and intensive care patients. It will vault WellStar Kennestone's total to 633 beds, second to Grady Memorial Hospital's 953.

In March, WellStar Kennestone announced the state's approval of its certificate of need, required for major hospital construction projects.

The expansion reflects population growth in Cobb County and a building boom among metro hospitals. Among those projects is a $344 million expansion by Children's Healthcare of Atlanta of its Egleston and Scottish Rite hospitals.

"Our occupancy rate is full," said Michelle Robinson, a spokeswoman for nonprofit WellStar Health System, which includes WellStar Cobb, Windy Hill, Paulding and Douglas hospitals.

Metro Atlanta's growth, along with aging trends, is driving the demand for hospital expansions and more beds, said Brent Layton, of local consulting firm Layton & Associates.

"It will be a recurring theme over the next few years," he said. "Emergency rooms and hospital beds throughout metro Atlanta are filled. They're beyond capacity."

The WellStar Kennestone construction is expected to begin this summer and be completed by July 2006.

WellStar Kennestone, in conjunction with Emory Healthcare, also has obtained a certificate of need for an open-heart surgery program, the first in Cobb. That state approval has been challenged by Piedmont Hospital and Saint Joseph's Hospital of Atlanta.

— This article was reprinted from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

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