After receiving state approval on Wednesday, the Huntsville Hospital system will move forward with its $150 million expansion plans, which include additional beds, more private rooms for patients and two new intensive care units.

The Alabama Certificate of Need Review Board, which evaluates hospital expansion proposals to avoid duplication of services, unanimously approved the initiative at its meeting Wednesday, the hospital said in a statement.

“The extra capacity will help us decrease wait times in the Emergency Department, and we’ll achieve another important milestone in our history – the end of double occupancy rooms at Huntsville Hospital,” CEO Jeff Samz said in the statement. “No one wants to share a hospital room, and we’ll finally be able to end this practice.”

The hospital said that the approval of 50 additional patient beds will bring the total to 931 at its flagship facility, Madison Street Tower, and the project will include turning 70 double rooms into single rooms.

Samz said in July the hospital would add five floors above the emergency room at the facility, creating 350 jobs.

“Expanding the Madison Street Tower will give us the space to meet the advanced health care needs of North Alabama and southern Tennessee for decades to come,” Samz said in Wednesday’s statement. “We are excited to now have the state’s approval so we can move forward with construction.”

The $150 million project will add 154,000 square feet at the northeast corner of the hospital facing Madison Street and St. Clair Avenue, the hospital said.

The two-year expansion will, according to the statement, include:

• A new Cardiothoracic Intensive Care Unit
• A new Neuro Intensive Care Unit for neurosurgical and stroke patients
• Three floors of new acute medical space
• 120 new private patient rooms
• A new and improved Emergency Department vehicle entrance

Burr Ingram, vice president for communications and marketing, said that increasing population necessitates the expansion.

“The growth in the community is obviously the primary reason, and the growth of the hospital, the need for beds, is because of the high census we’re experiencing,” Ingram told AL.com.