CaroMont Health paid $6 million for approximately 43 acres on S.C. Highway 557 in Lake Wylie and plans to open a hospital there by 2031, bringing emergency and inpatient care to a fast-growing corridor that has never had one.
The Gastonia, N.C.-based health system announced the purchase Wednesday, Sept. 16, according to the Rock Hill Herald. The site sits at Highway 557 and Glenn Brandon Road, near Oakridge Middle School and a Lowe's. It would be CaroMont's first hospital in South Carolina.
The project became possible after a state law change. For decades, South Carolina's Certificate of Need (CON) program required providers to obtain state approval before building a hospital or adding beds. Competing systems could challenge those applications, effectively giving incumbents veto power over new entrants. Gov. Henry McMaster signed S.164 in May 2023, eliminating the CON requirement for most health care facilities. For hospitals in counties that already have one, the requirement sunsets Jan. 1, 2027.
State Sen. Wes Climer, a Rock Hill Republican who led the repeal effort in the Senate, credited the law change for CaroMont's announcement. In a Facebook post after the Sept. 16 news, as reported by YoCo News, Climer wrote that the CON law had "protected hospital monopolies from competition, and patients paid the price through higher costs, fewer choices and limited access."
Climer said the repeal took three years to pass over opposition from hospital systems and other established interests.
At the ceremonial signing of S.164 in 2023, Climer said the repeal meant "patients will have more choices, will have lower costs … not by spending more money, not by creating new programs but by getting government out of the way."
York County's hospital landscape has shifted rapidly. Four years ago, Piedmont Medical Center in Rock Hill was the county's only hospital, a position it had held since opening in 1983. Piedmont opened a Fort Mill location in 2022. After the CON repeal, more projects followed: the Medical University of South Carolina has a $300 million campus under construction in Indian Land targeting 2028, Atrium Health confirmed a $450 million Fort Mill hospital for 2029, and Novant Health announced a $300 million complex off I-77 in Rock Hill, the Herald reported.
CaroMont's Lake Wylie facility would offer an emergency department staffed by board-certified emergency physicians, short-stay inpatient units, surgical and endoscopy services, and imaging and lab departments, according to a CaroMont press release. Patients needing higher-acuity care would transfer to CaroMont Regional Medical Center in Gastonia.
Chris Peek, CaroMont's president and CEO, said the health system has operated in York County for more than 20 years across seven specialties. "In York County, you can see the need in the growth along Highway 557 and in the families who drive past our practices every day but leave the area for hospital care," Peek said in the press release.
The Lake Wylie project is CaroMont's second neighborhood hospital. In June, the system filed a CON application in North Carolina to build an 18-bed facility in Kings Mountain in Cleveland County at a cost of about $115.6 million, with a targeted 2030 opening, according to Business North Carolina.
The hospital site also sits along a stretch of Highway 557 undergoing a $60 million widening from two lanes to five. The Pennies for Progress project runs from Kingsbury Road to Harper Green Drive, started in 2023 and is scheduled to finish in 2027, the Post and Courier reported.
Bed count, construction costs and job numbers for the Lake Wylie hospital have not been released. CaroMont said it will spend the coming months meeting with community leaders, elected officials and residents before sharing more details.
