Deborah Heart and Lung Center has a big birthday this year — its centennial. And this week, it kicked off a project to marking the milestone.

The first major capital expansion at the Browns Mills campus since the ’90s, DEBORAH100: The Project — a $108 million capital expansion and renovation project at the hospital — launched on Feb. 21 with a groundbreaking.

The work is being financed by an $88 million U.S. Department of Agriculture low-interest loan for rural development; with $10 million from Greater Commercial Lending; and through Deborah‘s own Capital Fundraising Campaign, which the provider said has raised the necessary balance of funds.

DEBORAH100: The Project will produce a completely new experience for patients and staff rise in Burlington County.

“Deborah clinical and support staff were fully engaged in the planning of the new and renovated space,” the center’s president and CEO, Joseph Chirichella, said in a statement.

“Our Facilities Team created a simulated patient room to the exact drawing specifications where staff was able to provide their suggestions for how the space should be designed,” he explained. “When completed, all patient rooms will be private, all new rooms will be critical care and isolation capable, and there will be a floor of dedicated respite space for staff with indoor and outdoor covered lounges as well as quiet rooms.”

In the mid-1990s, Deborah said it added and revamped 120,000 square feet of space in Browns Mills. Then, in 2018, a freestanding 60,000-square-foot Medical Office Building was dedicated at the campus.

Deborah enlisted Ewing Cole, Architects and Engineers to plan the latest work, and Torcon Inc. was chosen as general contractor.

DEBORAH100: The Project will add a three-story vertical addition to the existing hospital, bringing with it 36 private patient rooms. Meanwhile, three existing patient care units will also be renovated, increasing the hospital’s total licensed bed count to 95.

Its cardiac catheterization labs will be upgraded, a new pharmacy clean-room will be added, and robotic technology will be brought into Deborah’s electrophysiology labs.

“This project, which began prior to COVID, was aimed at increasing our total number of critical care beds, enhancing patient privacy and well-being, along with the well-being of our Clinical and Support Team. The pandemic has served to reinforce our vision of these needs, and fortify our resolve to continue providing the highest quality cardiac, pulmonary, and vascular care in the region,” said Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Jospeh Manni, who is overseeing the project.

Founded in 1922, Deborah Heart and Lung Center is New Jersey’s only specialty heart, lung, and vascular hospital, and is an Alliance member of the Cleveland Clinic Heart, Vascular & Thoracic Institute.