Florida Hospital Breaks Ground On $78M Expansion

By Matt Wiley

It’s only been about two and a half years since Florida Hospital Wesley Chapel (FHWC) opened its state-of-the-art facility on Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. in October 2012, but the hospital already has embarked on a massive expansion to continue to bring the same quality of service to the community.

During a groundbreaking ceremony held in the parking lot of FHWC on August 12, hundreds of people packed into an air-conditioned tent to get a glimpse of the planned expansion and watch as hospital administrators and local elected officials “planted a tree” — representing the growth of the facility, which originally wasn’t scheduled to expand until 2017.

The expansion involves about 112,000 sq. ft. of new space and nearly 11,000 sq. ft. of renovated space. It will allow for 62 more in-patient beds, 18 additional emergency rooms, five surgical suites and a catheterization lab, plus observation and recovery space and expanded support areas.

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Dist 2. Pasco County commissioner and Wesley Chapel resident Mike Moore was the first of many to speak a few words at the hospital’s expansion event. 

“Wesley Chapel and Pasco County are on the rise,” Moore said. “We’re on the rise because of community partners like FHWC.” 

Moore noted that it also was important to remember that the hospital might not be standing if not for the Porter family — which owns the Wiregrass Ranch Development of Regional Impact (DRI) — where FHWC is located. “(The Porter family is) one of the originators when it came to having the vision and the clarity for the future of this area,” Moore said. “What you see that surrounds you is due in big part to their family.”

Dist. 37 State Rep. Danny Burgess also was a featured guest speaker at the event.

“This is no coincidence that this (expansion) is happening so quickly,” Burgess said. “What we have here is nothing short of an incredible facility, an incredible hospital and an incredible team doing amazing healing, wellness and preventive work and the community recognized that. When families are looking to relocate (to this area), they (also) recognize that.”

Burgess added that his 19-month-old daughter was born at FHWC and his second child, a boy, is expected any day and also will be born at the hospital.

Chief medical officer Dr. Robert Rosequist talked about the steps that went into getting the hospital built, a process that started in 2007. He described the original groundbreaking for FHWC five years ago and how a tree was planted at that event, too.

“The tree didn’t make it, but the hospital did,” Rosequist joked.

“(Quality care) is doing the right thing the right way at the right time to the right patient, and we try to do that every day, here,” Rosequist said. “We need to expand because we can’t continue to provide that care in the existing brick and mortar hospital that we built just two and a half years ago.”

FHWC CEO Denyse Bales-Chubb gave the crowd the run-down of what the expansion will provide for the community.

“These additions will allow us to better serve the patients coming to us for care and be prepared for the incredible growth this community is experiencing,” Bales-Chubb said, before introducing a 3D conceptual video that displayed the actual expansion plans.

‘We Care,’ Too!

Bales-Chubb also announced the kick-off of the “We Care” fund-raising campaign for FHWC employees and community partners. 

So far, the Adventist Health System and Florida Hospital together contributing $61 million for the expansion. The goal is to raise the remaining $17 million. At the ceremony, a check for $70,124 was presented to the FHWC Foundation that already had been raised by the FHWC leadership team and 325 of the hospital’s employees.

Saddlebrook Resort & Spa owner and fund-raising campaign chair Tom Dempsey reflected on the growth in the area, which he tracked all the way back to when his resort broke ground a mile east of BBD on S.R. 54 about 35 years ago—and he didn’t know what to call the area around it.

He said when the resort broke ground, there was nothing around, not even a fruit stand. But, he said he saw a little wooden sign on the side of the road that said “Wesley Chapel.” Dempsey said he looked into it and the sign was about a religious guy who happened to have a chapel.

“I said, ‘That has a nice ring to it,’” Dempsey explained. “I’ll call the place Wesley Chapel.”

He added, “Someone mentioned earlier (during the groundbreaking ceremony) that {FHWC} is like a resort,” Dempsey said. “I’d like to remind them that it is a hospital. I’m the resort.”

Dempsey also said that he chose to become the chair of the hospital’s fund-raising campaign because he believes in the mission of FHWC.

“I think they know what they’re doing, they have a great record,” Dempsey said. “Their technology and what they do in their hospital goes beyond most other medical care. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend (FHWC) to anyone.”

Dempsey also promised that he would be making a contribution to the campaign and hopes that other community partners will do so, too.

To commemorate the groundbreaking, all who spoke grabbed a blue watering pail and “watered” an artificial tree to represent the growth of the hospital and the community. This one will make it.

The event was catered by Puff N’ Stuff, which provided a variety of delicious, hand-crafted breakfast pastries and wonderful coffee for the mid-morning event.