Significant site preparation is well underway at the future Riverside Smithfield Hospital (RSH), with construction trailers moving in, a building footprint pad cut into the earth and the beginning of an entrance road taking shape. Contractors are busy setting up temporary utilities for construction trailers, including power, cable and water for flushing toilets. Several trailers should be in place by the end of the month, following one for Riverside team members that had arrived in early October.
Creating a solid, stable building pad is the precursor to laying the concrete foundation for RSH. With an overall footprint now in place, contractors will slowly build up — and then compress — layers of dirt in one section of land at a time until all reach a specified height. Soil is first tested to ensure it has the proper density to support the building’s weight.
“There will be a lot of soil moving around in the next couple of months,” says Russell Parrish, a Registered Architect and Senior Project Manager. “It’s not glamorous work, but it’s very important. We’re still right on track with our project timeline.”
Next up will be about two more months of foundation work, with the first steel frames for the hospital possibly going up in February of next year.
The new hospital, a 200,000-square-foot, 50-bed inpatient facility near the intersection of routes US-258 and VA-10, is scheduled to open in early 2026. A Medical Office Building on the same 28-acre campus is due to open earlier, in the spring of 2025.
For more information on Riverside Smithfield Hospital, and to follow the construction and upcoming hiring process, visit riversideonline.com/rsh.