Riverside Health System has received approval from the State Health Commissioner to provide an ambulatory surgery center in Hampton, relocating two operating suites from Newport News to Hampton.

The $7.1 million state of-the-art outpatient surgical hospital will be the third ambulatory surgery center Riverside has opened in recent months. Riverside has opened similar facilities in Williamsburg and in Newport News.

State Health Commissioner Robert B. Stroube, M.D., M.P.H. noted that the new center “improves the distribution of OR capacity as well as promotes the development of surgical capability in an outpatient surgical hospital, which is a more cost effective setting.”

Riverside has the capability of locating the new surgery center on land adjacent to the Riverside Behavioral Health Center on Executive Drive, but plans to amend that location to 13.5 acres of land recently acquired Industrial Authority land in Hampton Roads Center South.