Kristi Tousignant/The Gazette Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett (D) talks to attendees of a speech he gave Monday stating his support of Washington Adventist Hospital’s proposed move to the eastern part of the county.

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Although the state still is deciding whether to allow Washington Adventist Hospital to relocate to White Oak, county officials and residents spoke in support of the move Monday.

Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett (D) spoke at the East County Community Center on the benefits of moving the hospital from Takoma Park to the eastern part of the county.

“This is a project that must be recognized, must be realized in Montgomery County,” Leggett said.

Adventist HealthCare, the hospital’s parent company, wants to build a new location in the planned East County Center for Science and Technology development, an envisioned science and health care destination that would include the Food and Drug Administration compound and a new mixed-use development called LifeSci Village.

About 50 people attended the event Monday at the community center, 3310 Gateshead Manor Way, Silver Spring.

“We are so appreciative of all this level of support,” said Joyce Portela, president of Washington Adventist Hospital.

Adventist HealthCare hopes to build a $398 million hospital in the science center development behind Orchard Center on Cherry Hill Road.

The Maryland Health Care Commission in Baltimore heard testimony on the move at the beginning of August.

The commission’s approval of Adventist HealthCare’s Certificate of Need is one of the last steps for the health care company in moving the facility. Once the commissioner who heard testimony on the relocation issues a recommendation, the recommendation must be public for at least 30 days, then it will be considered by the whole commission.

Other nearby hospitals such as Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring and Dimensions Healthcare System, which owns Laurel Hospital, testified against Washington Adventist’s move during the commissioner’s hearing, saying the move would draw patients away from their facilities.

Adventist HealthCare is working on final designs of the building while waiting for the commission’s decision, Portela said.

“We are moving forward,” Portela said. “We are not sitting here doing nothing.”

Ben Steffen, acting executive director of the Maryland Health Care Commission, said in an email he expected the commissioner to submit a recommendation early next year. Steffen said he also thought the commission likely would begin discussing the recommendation in February.

“Right now, we just wait,” Portela said.

The 249-private-bed hospital would add $475.5 million to the regional economy during construction and create 5,278 regional jobs post-construction, according to an economic study released earlier this year by Stephen S. Fuller, a professor at George Mason University and director of the university’s Center for Regional Analysis.

Kim Bobola, a former member of the East County Citizens Advisory Board who has lived in Burtonsville for 21 years, also spoke at the event.

“I was most excited by the hospital as a building block for the development of East County,” Bobola said.

ktousignant@gazette.net