Holy Cross Hospital This artist’s rendering shows the 237,200-square-foot, six-story hospital that Holy Cross Hospital is planning to build in Germantown.

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Work has begun in Germantown on Montgomery County’s newest hospital in 35 years.

A groundbreaking ceremony Dec. 8 marked the beginning of construction of the Holy Cross Hospital on the Montgomery College campus in Germantown.

Once completed in 2014, the 93-bed, 237,200-square-foot hospital will be the first in the country to operate on a community college campus with an educational partnership, said Yolanda Gaskins, spokeswoman for Holy Cross Hospital.

The construction of the hospital comes as officials project that Montgomery County’s population will grow by 175,000 in the next 20 years, while the Gaithersburg and Germantown area has a population density that is 70 percent higher than the county overall.

Thanks to a partnership brokered between the hospital and community college, Montgomery College students will receive more than 60 nursing and clinical care rotation slots per semester in the facility, while the hospital will provide at least one full-time employee to teach health-related courses at the campus.

While Holy Cross Hospital celebrates the start of its newest medical addition, Adventist HealthCare officials will continue to operate the Shady Grove Adventist Emergency Center at Germantown, said Robert Jepson, Vice President of Government Relations & Public Policy for Adventist HealthCare.

The 17,000-square-foot emergency care facility opened in 2006 to provide medical services to a growing upcounty population. It has all the capabilities of a standard hospital emergency room, but without in-patient beds, Jepson said, adding that on average, the facility treats 36,000 patients annually.

The two hospital giants fought for two years for the official go-ahead to build a hospital in upper Montgomery County. In January, the Maryland Health Care Commission unanimously selected Holy Cross Hospital’s plan to build a $202 million hospital in Germantown over Adventist HealthCare’s proposal for a $177 million hospital in Clarksburg.

Had a Clarksburg hospital been built, the emergency center in Germantown would have remained functional, while broadening its services, Jepson said.

“We’re not going anywhere,” he said.