CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – UVA Health has acquired the 55-acre, 365,000 square-foot abandoned State Farm building at 1500 State Farm Blvd. in Pantops, which will become home to a outpatient services facility. University of Virginia President Scott Beardsley announced the purchase Friday afternoon during a special Board of Visitors’ meeting.

“Demand for our UVA Health patient care is on the rise every day and every year and for both inpatient care that requires a hospital stay and for outpatient care that requires clinical treatment for the same day you go in and go out,” Beardsley told the Board. “By 2035, UVA Health projects there will be roughly 1.2-million outpatient visits happening per year right here in the Charlottesville area, which is about 300,000 more than we have right now.”

“That demand, as you might imagine, is straining the system basically located on our medical campus over in this direction behind me,” he said as he pointed to an eastern wall of the boardroom inside the Rotunda. “Dr. Mitch Rosner and his team have been seeking ways to solve for this and help us build capacity to address this rising demand.”

“The State Farm Building will help us meet demand for our world-class care in an easy-to-reach location while also freeing up additional space at University Hospital to expand our inpatient care,” said Mitchell Rosner, MD, MACP, FRCP, CEO of UVA Health, and UVA Vice President for Health Affairs. “We view ourselves as really a tertiary hospital that is here to care for all citizens in our Commonwealth and right now we have patients that are driving 6 to 8 hours to come get our care.”

One of the other compelling factors of this new property is the 1,200 parking spaces there.

“We expect to open the new facility in 2028,” President Beardsley said, but the parking can be used much earlier. “There’s many ways to make good use of the grounds and the parking which is there in the meantime, so we’re going to try and see what we can do as soon as possible.”

The gross purchase price of the property was approximately $48.3-million, according to a UVA Health release, but UVA Health benefited from payment received from the previous tenant/lessee for early termination of their lease obligations, reducing the net purchase price to $37.7-million.

“With this new location on Pantops, combined with our University Medical Center outpatient locations at UVA Orthopedic Center Ivy Road, Northridge Medical Park, Fontaine Research Park, and UVA Health Riverside in northern Albemarle County, our goal is to make it easier for patients to receive our high-quality care at convenient locations across the region,” said John Bennett, MPA, UVA Health’s chief service line and ambulatory officer.

President Beardsley said this new facility will provide a much better experience for patient care with its multitude of parking and ease of getting in and getting out. Work is also underway at University Hospital where the average occupancy in Fiscal 2026 was 91%, according to the release. To accommodate more inpatients, construction crews are building out the top three floors of the South Tower to add beds for the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, as well as pediatrics and adult cancer care. In addition, planning is underway to repurpose the Transitional Care Hospital on Ivy Rd. into inpatient behavioral health rooms, freeing up additional beds at University Hospital, according to the release.

“These projects are expected to add 137 inpatient beds at University Hospital during the next three years,” the release said.

The building was built, according to LoopNet, in 1978 and underwent renovation in 2012. President Beardsley said the building has been vacant for more than five years after State Farm employees (in 2020) began teleworking during the pandemic and never went back there.

According to the Albemarle County records, the property is assessed with the land and building at $37,039,100.