Northside Hospital Forsyth breaks ground on major expansion tower

Forsyth County’s swelling population is already putting pressure on Northside Hospital Forsyth, and the hospital’s answer is a six-story patient tower built to add 96 rooms, expand the emergency department and move the campus toward 500 beds.

Hospital leaders marked the start of the project on April 16 in Cumming, saying the expansion is meant to keep pace with the county’s rapid growth and the region’s rising need for care. The tower is expected to be finished by 2028. Plans call for more than 260,000 square feet of new construction, 57,000 square feet of renovations to existing space and a parking deck with about 500 spaces.

The new tower is only one piece of a broader buildout. Northside says the Forsyth campus is also getting a separate four-story, 120,000-square-foot medical office building and two additional parking decks, both expected to be completed by fall 2026. The office building is designed to support pulmonology, colorectal surgery, imaging, neurology, thoracic surgery and related services, giving patients more outpatient options closer to home.

The timing reflects how quickly Northside’s local footprint has grown. Since the hospital came to Forsyth County in 2002, it has expanded from 41 beds to 407 beds, while handling more than 800,000 patient encounters in 2024. In 2025, Northside said it recorded more than 851,000 patient encounters, including more than 67,000 emergency visits. That volume is the clearest sign of what the new tower is trying to solve: more beds, more treatment space and a larger ER for a campus already stretched by demand.

The campus expansion also carries economic weight beyond medicine. The Forsyth County Chamber of Commerce said the project strengthens the county’s competitiveness because employers, workers and families all weigh access to high-quality health care when deciding where to live and do business. Chamber president and CEO Alex Warner said the hospital has a “halo effect” through job growth and by providing health care options that enhance the community.

Forsyth County’s growth helps explain why the project matters now. The county’s population was estimated at 282,805 on July 1, 2025, up from 251,283 in the 2020 census, reinforcing the pressure on health care, parking and access around the Northside campus as development continues to spread across metro Atlanta.