St. Luke's Care Now on Lanark Road in Center Valley closes at 4 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. LVH–Coopersburg, scheduled for the bare lot across Route 309 from the Wawa at West Passer Road, is planned to run 24 hours a day, every day of the year.
Jefferson Health held the groundbreaking there on Tuesday, Oct. 27. People who drive that stretch daily have watched the site turn into what Saucon Source called a "barren construction site thousands of motorists see today." The building has one practical job. It moves the closest full emergency department from a drive out of town to the north edge of the borough.
What the late-evening care map looks like today
Here is what the health systems currently list for emergency and walk-in care around Coopersburg:
| Facility | Address | What it is | Posted hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| St. Luke's Care Now – Center Valley | 5445 Lanark Road, Center Valley | Walk-in care | 8 a.m.–8 p.m. weekdays, 8 a.m.–4 p.m. weekends |
| St. Luke's Care Now – Quakertown | 157 South West End Boulevard, Quakertown | Walk-in care | 8 a.m.–8 p.m. daily |
| St. Luke's Care Now – Hellertown | 110 Main Street, Hellertown | Walk-in care | See St. Luke's listing |
| St. Luke's Upper Bucks Campus ER | 3000 St. Luke's Drive, Quakertown | Emergency room | See St. Luke's listing |
| St. Luke's University Hospital – Bethlehem | 801 Ostrum Street, Bethlehem | Emergency department, Fountain Hill campus | 24 hours |
| Lehigh Valley Hospital–Cedar Crest | 1200 South Cedar Crest Blvd, Allentown | Emergency department | 24 hours |
| Lehigh Valley Hospital–Muhlenberg | 2545 Schoenersville Road, Bethlehem | Level II trauma center and emergency department | 24 hours |
Two details explain why the table looks the way it does. First, the Center Valley Care Now has been on Lanark Road since October 2018, when St. Luke's moved it from 4801 Saucon Creek Road. Older directories still list the Saucon Creek Road address. Second, the Upper Bucks emergency room is the department that relocated from the former St. Luke's Quakertown Campus, so a Quakertown trip now ends at St. Luke's Drive.
Every emergency department on that list sits in Quakertown, Fountain Hill, Allentown or Bethlehem. Jefferson describes the new Coopersburg site as about nine miles from LVH–Cedar Crest.
What broke ground on Oct. 27
The Morning Call reports that Lehigh Valley Hospital–Coopersburg is a 22,000-square-foot building at 3875 W. Passer Road, budgeted at $45 million. Jefferson's announcement calls it a licensed, accredited acute care facility with a full-service emergency department, open 24 hours a day year-round, with 11 emergency room beds and 10 inpatient beds for patients who need overnight stays or more monitoring and testing. The projected opening is late 2027.
A second building, the Health Center at Coopersburg, will go up on the same site. Jefferson says it will offer adult rehabilitation, rheumatology, primary care and other services. That makes this a two-building campus. Over time, the corner is set to handle routine appointments as well as emergencies.
Speaking to the Morning Call, Amy Nyberg, Jefferson's president of ambulatory services, described what the hospital is built to do:
"LVH–Coopersburg will be a standalone hospital, but clinically connected to the larger network for those needing advanced care. It will feature a welcoming environment and is equipped to treat and stabilize any condition."
Jefferson says patients who need more advanced care are stabilized at a neighborhood hospital and then moved to a larger Jefferson hospital. The Morning Call describes the model as a step between urgent care and the emergency rooms of large hospitals. In that same Morning Call story, Dr. Eric Bean, an LVHN emergency physician, said the network's neighborhood hospitals have "even delivered babies," then added, "we're not recommending having your babies delivered here, but sometimes the world has its own schedule."
Sources describe the location slightly differently. The Morning Call and Saucon Source put the hospital in Upper Saucon Township, just north of Coopersburg. Jefferson describes the larger campus as spanning Coopersburg Borough and Upper Saucon Township.
How a residential corner became a hospital site
The site went through a zoning change first, and it shows up in Upper Saucon Township's public record:
- August 12, 2024. Upper Saucon enacted Ordinance 141-BB. It rezoned three tracts totaling about 3.579 acres at the northeast corner of North Main Street and West Passer Road from R-2 residential to Commercial.
- February 15, 2025. The township posted a Zoning Hearing Board notice naming LVHN Realty Holding Company as owner and NH-Coopersburg PA-1 UT, LLC as applicant. It covered six parcels totaling 6.80 acres at 3875 Passer Road, three addresses on North Main Street and two on Route 309, all then zoned Commercial.
- March 5, 2025. This was the hearing date set for that appeal on the "Neighborhood Hospital and Medical Office Building Record Plan." The applicant asked for interpretations or variances, including a 20-foot setback for the office building where 50 feet was required, a trash and generator enclosure in a front yard, and utility work inside a wetlands buffer.
- October 27, 2026. Groundbreaking.
The notice's list of requests also shows how the campus is laid out. It has two buildings, one of them an office building close to the road, plus required equipment enclosures and a wetland edge that the utility lines have to cross.
What the earlier neighborhood hospitals say about the wait
Coopersburg is the fifth microhospital in the LVHN footprint since 2022, according to the Morning Call. The three already open set the pattern:
- LVH–Macungie opened in March 2024 as the network's first neighborhood hospital. It has an 11-bed ER, 10 inpatient beds, lab and imaging, and a health center next door.
- LVH–Gilbertsville followed in June 2024 with the same 11 ER beds and 10 inpatient beds, plus an adjacent health center.
- LVH–Pocono Creek opened in January 2026 at 1328 Golden Slipper Road in Bartonsville. LVHN describes it as about 22,000 square feet, the same footprint the Morning Call reports for Coopersburg.
Every one of them pairs an 11-bed ER with a health center, and that is the setup planned for Route 309.
Hellertown, the fourth in line, is the one to watch for timing. A March 2025 Saucon Source report described a three-story, 90,000-square-foot building on the former Champion spark plug factory site, with the hospital on the first floor and medical offices above, and an opening expected by mid-2026. As of late October 2026, the Morning Call says LVH–Hellertown is still under construction. Saucon Source now reports an early 2027 opening, and Jefferson's release says 2027. Coopersburg's "late 2027" is a projection on the same kind of schedule.
Once Hellertown opens, the stretch between Coopersburg and I-78 will have two neighborhood hospitals: one off the interstate at the north end of Hellertown and one on Route 309 at Passer Road. Until both are finished, the emergency options for Coopersburg are the ones in the table above.
For homeowners near the north end of the borough, a two-building health campus on a corner that was zoned residential two years ago will change how that stretch of Route 309 looks and works. If you're thinking about how the new campus fits into your plans to sell or stay, I'd be glad to talk it through. I've watched Lehigh Valley corridors change for more than 30 years. Request a complimentary market valuation from Creighton Faust. Call Creighton today.
