New Lexington Medical park adding to growing health care options in SC suburb

Lexington Medical Center’s upcoming Blythewood facility joins several recent additions to health care offerings in the northeast Columbia area.

Expected to open in late 2025, Lexington Medical Park Blythewood will have a family medicine office, an OB-GYN practice and physical therapy services.

The town of Blythewood has seen a lot of growth in the last few years, jumping from just over 2,000 people as of the 2010 U.S. Census to nearly 7,000 as of the latest population estimates. The new facility is set to go in just outside the town limit at 230 Redhawk Way, along the road leading to Westwood High School.

Growth in the town and surrounding areas has led to increased demand for medical services, said Kirk Jenkins, senior vice president at the Lexington Medical Center Physicians Network.

“We already have a lot of patients in our practices that live in that Blythewood area,” Jenkins said. “So we knew that the need was there. It was just a matter of when we could put a facility in that location.”

Mayor Sloan Griffin of Blythewood said that the northeast Columbia area has been described as a “hole” in health care coverage during conversations with local providers.

“I’m proud to see that those health organizations have recognized that the time of travel to receive health care was an issue,” Griffin said.

Lexington Medical Center’s presence in the northeast began in 1998 when it opened a family practice office. In 2021, it opened Lexington Medical Center Northeast, the largest community medical center in the network.

Earlier this year, Scout Motors revealed that Lexington Medical Center will provide on-site medical services for employees at its upcoming Scout Motors plant in Blythewood. With many of the plant’s 4,000 predicted workers and their families likely to live in the area, the new medical park will also provide primary care for this anticipated population, Jenkins said.

Before Scout Motors came to Blythewood, Lexington Medical Center was already a community partner, supporting the chamber of commerce and participating in local events, Griffin and Deb Stapleton, executive director of the Greater Blythewood Chamber of Commerce, emphasized.

“Any time we need assistance, they’re always there to partner with us,” Stapleton said.

According to Stapleton, community members have been calling the chamber to express their support for the new facility and to ask when it will launch.

“They have just been really excited about having one here in Blythewood instead of driving to the [Lexington Medical Center] Northeast on Longtown Road,” Stapleton said.

That facility sits about six miles from the town of Blythewood.

Lexington Medical Center seeks out community relationships such as the one it’s building with Blythewood, Jenkins said.

“This is our home,” he added. “So we want those types of relationships with all areas of our community, whether it be chamber of commerce or any other community-focused group. That’s critical for us.”

Lexington Medical Center isn’t the only health care service expanding in the area.

In 2024, MUSC Health opened a primary care facility in Blythewood.

That same year, Prisma Health began construction on its new Northeast Columbia Medical Park, which it expects to complete this fall. That $128 million dollar project will provide a mix of primary and specialty care, according to a 2024 press release.

In addition to the farther northeast area, Lexington Medical Center has also expanded into Forest Acres after seeing a similar growth in demand.

The system opened the first building of a new medical park in February 2024. It’s home to OB-GYN and family practices and an imaging center. Construction on an adjacent building is underway, slated to open in November, with plans to include a heart and vascular center.

“As we see the growth out in really every direction in the Midlands, we’ll continue to move towards something similar to what we’re doing in Blythewood most likely,” Jenkins said.

He said Lexington Medical’s efforts to connect patients with primary care providers within the system helps identify where expansion properties are needed. Once primary care options are established in these areas, they follow behind with specialty care to round out their options, as they’re doing in Blythewood.

“That’s really what we’re trying to do is maintain that primary care presence, make sure our community has access to those services and then compliment that with the specialty services they might need too,” Jenkins said.