FORT MILL TOWNSHIP -- Hospital Partners of America, a Charlotte-based group, said it will file an application with the state Department of Health and Environmental Control to compete with Tenet Healthcare Corp. to build a hospital in Fort Mill.

Officials with Hospital Partners said it will take up to the DHEC deadline of March 11 for the company to put together its application.

"The development process is long and expensive," said Terry Linn, chief development officer for Hospital Partners of America.

Like Tenet, Hospital Partners, founded in 2002, has plans for a 64-bed hospital. However, its $75 million proposal calls for a 20-acre site.

Tenet wants to build a facility on 40 acres and says its $107 million facility could expand to 250 beds.

Hospital Partners is in the process of searching out locations to build the physician-partnered hospital. The hospital would create between 250 and 300 jobs for the area, the company said.

The company is eyeing three locations for a hospital - one along the Gold Hill Road corridor, and the other along the Hwy. 160 West corridor, and a third which they would not disclose.

The company said it wants to build a 140,000-square-foot hospital. Linn said the company is expected to have a suitable site identified by next week. A site must be finalized before their DHEC application can be filed.

"We think it is important to be on the I-77 corridor for access to the exits," Linn said. "We want this to be a primary destination."

One Fort Mill developer in negotiations to build a hospital is Shawn Helda, president of Corinthian Properties. Helda wouldn't disclose who he was in discussions with, but he said he is talking with a "couple" of groups interested in building a hospital.

Helda is developing 277 acres off Gold Hill Road surrounding the Charlotte Knights baseball stadium.

"We are looking at our options," he said.

Helda said he believes his development, Gold Hill Commons, would be a great location for a hospital. The development will be mostly office buildings and will have some multifamily housing. It is seven to eight years away from completion.

"We feel like we have a very strong site with its usage," Helda said. "We think it is a wonderful environment."

Along with a hospital, Hospital Partners is proposing building at least one 60,000-square-foot medical office building and possibly relocating its headquarters from Charlotte to Fort Mill.

The company specializes in hospital acquisitions and construction. Hospital Partners owns and operates three hospitals - two in Texas and one in Redding, Calif. - and is projected to bring in $300 million in revenues in 2005. Two of those hospitals were formerly owned by Tenet.

"We would like to have some facilities in the Carolinas," Linn said. "We are a new company, but we are very experienced. We think there is significant opportunity for our market out there."

Linn said it would take up to two years to build the hospital if approved.

Tenet, the owner of Piedmont Medical Center, has filed with DHEC to build a hospital at the corner of Hwy. 160 West and Hwy. 21.

Charles Miller, CEO of Piedmont, said he expected competition for this area and added that he expects the loser of the process to take legal action. That could delay the building of a hospital for either party to 2009 or 2010.

Piedmont's plans would be to build the hospital on 40 acres purchased from Clear Springs Development Co., the builders of Baxter Village. Piedmont has an agreement with Clear Springs to be the sole developer of its medical services, Miller said.

Miller said the Fort Mill hospital would be a self-supporting facility.

The four-story hospital would hire 250 new employees, Miller said.

"We believe our facilities need to be well rounded," Miller said. "We wanted to give a lot of thought to what our facility needed. We want to be an integral part of this community. This is a very community oriented and driven process."