New babies born at Kennewick’s Trios Health will arrive at Southridge Hospital starting March 29.

That’s when Trios Health opens its new birth center there.

The current birth center on Auburn Street, located within the original Kennewick General Hospital that opened in 1952, closes its doors permanently the morning of March 29 and all services will be transitioned to the Southridge campus at 7 a.m. that day.

Patients in labor should check in at the emergency room entrance on the Southridge campus from March 29 forward.

“We are eager to open the doors of our new birth center to expectant mothers and their families,” said John Solheim, Trios Health chief executive officer, said in a news release. “It has been a long time coming to bring all of our hospital services under one roof, and we are incredibly excited for the public to see the new space and for families to be able to welcome their babies at our Trios Birth Center.”

A ribbon-cutting ceremony and public tours are set for 4:30 p.m. March 23.

The new birth center was made possible by a nearly $22 million investment from LifePoint Health, Trios’ parent company.

The 23,376-square-foot birth center addition was built on the second and third floors of the hospital, with about 9,970 square feet of existing space also being renovated for the project.

The new unit includes two dedicated rooms for Caesarean section deliveries, six labor, delivery, recovery and postpartum rooms, and a 10-bed critical care nursery for babies born after 32 weeks’ gestation.

From the space that was renovated, 11 existing beds from the medical/surgical floors were converted to postpartum beds.

Originally expected to be completed in late April, the Trios Birth Center is opening about a month earlier than anticipated when construction began.

The move to the Southridge campus also necessitated the relocation of the Trios Obstetrics and Women’s Health Clinic, previously located at the Trios Care Center at deBit adjacent to the birth center. The new clinic opened March 1 on the sixth floor of the Trios Care Center at Southridge.

Drs. Kyle Curtis, Hala Madi, Shumal Malepati and Adam Smith practice at the clinic.

Construction is continuing after the completion of the birth center to expand the third floor of the hospital to relocate those beds to that floor.

Southridge Hospital’s previous licensed bed count will increase from 74 to 111 with the completion of the new unit, but the overall bed count does not change, as 37 of those beds are being relocated from the Auburn campus.

Construction was completed by Layton Construction, which will remain on site to complete the medical/surgical expansion.

LifePoint added $6 million to the project budget to expand the 12,000-square-foot third-floor medical floor for surgery.

Work is expected to be completed in July.