VCU Health Community Memorial Hospital is selling bricks as part of an effort to raise funds for a new medical services center as part of the hospital being built in South Hill.

Building the medical center now will be less expensive because the construction crew is already on-site building the hospital — so undertaking the project now is estimated to save at least $850,000.

VCU Health has committed to match whatever is raised.

The community hospital — known by the acronym CMH — has also earmarked an additional $3.5 million for the project.

The project is estimated to cost between $10-$11 million, and has already received commitments from several donors for more than $2.25 million.

There are already more than 400 donors. The bricks are selling for $500.

“You’re going to say ‘That’s expensive,’” Ken Kurz, director of marketing and development at CMH, said. “Yes, it is, because it’s a fundraiser.”

Kurz was the speaker at the Lunenburg County Chamber of Commerce’s membership luncheon meeting on Thursday at Mildred’s Meals in Kenbridge.

The personalized bricks will be placed in the new brick plaza outside of the café at the new hospital. The brick plaza will be called the healing gardens.

“The good news is it’s permanent and it’s forever and you can have a piece of CMH,” Kurz said.

The Virginia Commonwealth University Health System is adding CMH to its operation — a project that means an $82 million investment of staff, facilities and equipment to the community. Groundbreaking for the new 166,700-square-foot facility was held in late October.

The hospital will be renamed VCU Health Community Memorial Hospital, and will continue to draw from central and southern Virginia and parts of North Carolina.

“All the steel is done, folks,” Kurz told the gathering. “Basically, a year from today, they will be done with this new hospital.”

Done with construction, “we will still need to move in equipment,” he said.

The opening is scheduled for Nov. 11, 2017.

Administrators at the hospital say the relationship with VCU Medical Center is already helping the region by attracting doctors and improving the level of healthcare for the region by improving access to specialists. Already 17 new providers are at CMH with more coming prior to the new hospital opening, Kurz said.

The new facility will have 70 private patient rooms, and include 10 intensive/coronary care rooms, three operating suites, a Cesarean section suite, an emergency department with 16 bays, a cardiac cath lab and ample parking. There is also already space for additional rooms at the hospital, and creation of additional facilities. There is space to have up to 130 beds.

An OB-GYN is also coming to the hospital, which will have four labor, delivery, recovery and postpartum rooms.

“The OB unit is huge for Southside Virginia and northern North Carolina,” Kurz said.

Besides the hospital and the medical services center, there are plans for a long-term care facility.

There is no time frame for its development.