St. Charles Health System will soon begin construction on a 53,000-square-foot cancer center in Redmond. The facility is expected to boost revenue and bring services to communities to the north and east of Central Oregon.

Located on the corner of NW Kingwood and NW Canal avenues in Redmond, the $90 million center will expand access and services to Redmond and surrounding communities and serve 300 or more cancer patients every day.

When complete, the two-story building will house 36 exam rooms, 24 chemotherapy infusion chairs, a high-dose brachytherapy suite to deliver cancer treatment through internal radiation, radiation oncology, surgical oncology and support services.

The new cancer center will take a lot of pressure off the 2,500-square-foot Bend facility, which is overcrowded, said Mari Shay, St. Charles Health System chief nursing officer for ambulatory care services.

“Bend is bursting at the seams,” Shay said. “It’s challenging for patients to commute to Bend every day. When we planned to expand to Redmond, we knew it had to be big enough to be regional.”

The hospital system estimates 40% of its patients coming to the cancer center in Bend now drive from Redmond, Madras and Prineville.

Patients are even coming to Central Oregon from as far away as Idaho, Shay said.

If those patients need daily radiation treatment they can travel more than 50 miles in a day, according to the health system.

Redmond resident Bruce Barrett said the new facility is great news for the region.

He said years ago his mother, in her 80s at the time, needed chemotherapy treatments and would make the 20-minute one-way drive from Redmond to Bend.

“Of course it left her exhausted toward the end and was more than she could handle on her own,” said Barrett, a commercial real estate broker. “The new state of the art center in Redmond will be a blessing for patients and their families by reducing travel time and ensuring they have access to the best possible care.”

Construction should begin mid-July on the Redmond center. The health system hopes to have it completed by the end of 2025. The center has been planned since 2020, but was delayed because of the pandemic.

The incidence of cancer in Central Oregon continues to climb, Shay said. It could be an outgrowth of an aging population or delayed screenings and treatment during COVID-19, she said.

“It’s a huge expansion,” Shay said. “It will be a full-service radiation oncology center with the same equipment for both facilities.”