The city has been flirting with a second hospital — and their on-again, off-again relationship took a positive turn this week.

Maricopa City Council unanimously approved new contracts for an S3 BioTech medical campus near Copper Sky during a special meeting Tuesday night.

Current medical options in the city are slim: a pair of urgent care clinics with limited hours and Exceptional Community Hospital, which opened in 2021.

With that in mind, opening a second full-service hospital is an exciting move, according to City Manager Rick Horst.

“We’ve been working on this for a number of years and the community is in dire need of additional health services,” he told InMaricopa. “We’re just happy to get them going.”

Construction on the medical campus will begin within the next few months.

“By their agreement, they have to be under construction before the end of March, but I suspect they’ll be under construction much sooner,” Horst said.

Investing in healthcare

Last month, Horst confirmed the city canceled the previous agreement because Phoenix-based S3 BioTech took too long to begin construction. He implied funding was difficult.

“S3 has a great vision and great ideas, but with the current economy and inflation rates, they had a hard time getting the funding group together,” he said.

The developer partnered with The BR Companies, a California-based real estate and construction group.

“They brought the money to the table,” he said. “That’s the big difference. The money is there now.”

It’s a pricey investment.

According to an updated bid submittal, the construction budget for the medical campus tops $266.8 million, with an estimated completion date around June 2025. The hospital itself will cost $41.1 million and the medical office building $25.3 million.

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