The expansion plan involves a 167,000-square-foot addition that would be built partly on top of Shelby Baptist's emergency department. The proposed South Tower would have two floors with 98 beds total, with another unfinished floor to accommodate up to 48 more beds in a later project.

The current proposal would not add new beds to Shelby Baptist's 192-bed license, but it would put all the beds in private rooms. The hospital has 50 semiprivate rooms, an unpopular concept in health care today. The semiprivate rooms also are small and in the oldest parts of the hospital, built in the 1950s and 1960s.

"If I thought we had an Achilles' heel at this hospital, it is that we have semi-private rooms," said David Wilson, Shelby Baptist's president and chief executive officer.

The project is the largest single investment that Baptist Health System is undertaking now among its four hospitals, which all have renovation and expansions recently completed, in process or coming soon. The area's growth boom requires the capital infusion in Shelby Baptist, which started as a 35-bed hospital in 1959, said Ross Mitchell, the parent company's spokesman.

"To continue to meet the needs of the community, significant capital investment needs to be made," Mitchell said.

Baptist Health System also is opening a medical complex soon in Hoover on Alabama 150. Shelby Baptist's new patient building would provide space for a laboratory, instrument sterilization and storage, waiting areas and other services. The project also calls for a new, freestanding energy plant, to accommodate the current hospital and the addition.

Shelby Baptist filed a letter of intent for the project this week and expects to file a Certificate of Need application for state approval within 60 days. Hospital officials hope to start construction in late spring or early summer, and construction should take 24 months.

A settlement reached in January with Brookwood Medical Center removes the most likely opponent to the project. Brookwood agreed to let Shelby Baptist continue its open-heart surgery program, which started in August 2004, and Baptist Health System agreed to drop its opposition to Brookwood's planned $63 million renovation. Both sides agreed not to oppose each other's future renovations and expansions.

Estimated costs for the project include $72 million for construction of the South Tower, $14 million for construction of the energy plant and $15 million in new equipment. The South Tower will begin with three floors on top of part of the emergency department and extend toward the back of the campus.

In addition, a parking deck with a crosswalk to the new building is planned.

Women's floor overhaul:

Shelby Baptist completed a new, $4.4 million emergency department in July and this month finished a $4.4 million overhaul of its women's services floor. The hospital will spend another $3.7 million to create a separate entrance and lobby for obstetrical services, which the hospital wants to promote. That project should be finished next summer.

"We're trying to create a separate and distinct women's center," Wilson said.

Since 2004, Baptist Health System has shrunk from a 10-hospital system to four plus a minority interest in Montclair Baptist, now Trinity Medical Center. The hospital system also sold a nursing home, retirement communities and SportsFirst fitness centers. Mitchell said Baptist would be able to pay for Shelby Baptist's project without incurring new debt.