Although Wesley Chapel already has two full-size, full-service hospitals located within a couple of miles of each other, the area’s largest hospital is now being built less than a mile from AdventHealth Wesley Chapel, the first hospital to open (more than a decade ago) in any of Wesley Chapel’s three zip codes (33543, 33544 and 33545).
And, although Orlando Health Wesley Chapel has not yet begun going vertical, when the nonprofit hospital operator asked North Tampa Bay Chamber (NTBC) president & CEO Hope Kennedy if she would be interested in hosting a community meeting to introduce Orlando Health to the local community, Kennedy says she jumped at the opportunity.
“It was a no-brainer for us,” Kennedy said after the meeting was held on Feb. 21 at Pasco Hernando State College (PHSC)’s Porter Campus at Wiregrass Ranch, which is located within a few hundred feet of the new hospital site now under development at the corner of S.R. 56 and Wiregrass Ranch Blvd.
Kennedy asked Porter Campus Provost Dr. Davina Jones if she would be interested in having the meeting at PHSC, where the Chamber hosts its monthly Business Breakfasts, and the event was quickly put together.
More than 150 NTBC members and a number of local contractors interested in working with Orlando Health on the project came to the meeting, which featured Kennedy, Dr. Jones, Pasco Economic Development Council VP Mike Bishop, Wiregrass Ranch developer JD Porter, Orlando Health VP of Facility Development & Asset Strategy John Walsh and Kim Neuscheler, the VP & general manager of Turner Construction Tampa, which is building the new hospital.
Walsh said the 103-year-old Orlando Health decided to make its first foray into Pasco County and Wesley Chapel because of the area’s “amazing growth and opportunity,” especially after recently acquiring Florida Medical Clinic, the 52-office physician group that will allow Orlando Health to not only staff the new hospital, but create new partnerships in the area.
When it is completed, Orlando Health’s will be the largest of the three hospitals in Wesley Chapel, at 395,000 sq. ft. and 300 total beds (although the $300-million first phase will include about 102 beds — 90 medical/surgical and 12 ICU and six operating rooms, with room for 78 additional beds in the building’s shell). It also will include two large (one 60,000 and the other 80,000 sq. ft.) medical office buildings on the same 35-acre site.
Walsh also said that in addition to the Tampa office of Turner Construction, all of the subcontractors also will come from the local area, which explains in no small part why so many of those providers attended this community event.
“This is such an exciting opportunity for Pasco County and the Wesley Chapel area,” Kennedy said.
Walsh also stressed that although Orlando Health is building a hospital, “this is not a one-and-done kind of project…we’re also already working in Lutz to put in a free-standing ED (emergency department); we’re also building the two medical office buildings, which will have an ambulatory surgical center, imaging center and an array of acute care facilities and physician specialists to keep us all healthy, so maybe we won’t have to go through the doors of the hospital (which will need about 400 employees when it opens). It’s important to have that whole array of services. This is not ‘sick care,’ it’s health care.”
Walsh also mentioned the possibility of adding 10-bed “micro-hospitals,” as needed to serve communities located further from the hospital that couldn’t necessarily support a full-size hospital of their own.
“The most important things we build in a community is not the buildings,” Walsh added. “It’s the relationships.”
Porter, who admitted that, “Our biggest fear was that this could turn out to be an albatross if we built too many hospitals,” also said that he knew Orlando Health was a great partner to work with and that, despite the presence of what will be three hospitals by sometime in 2026, “With all the growth out here, this area is actually still underserved. We’ve got a long, long way to go.”
And, when Kennedy asked about what PHSC could do to help ensure that there is a useful workforce for the new hospital, Dr. Jones responded that, “As a State College, with a history as a Community College, we have a responsibility to know what the needs are in the communities that we serve. So, we’re asking ourselves now, ‘Do we have…are we offering… the right programs…to serve the business community that’s here?’ Our goal is to never get too comfortable and to always be willing to change with the community’s needs.”
Meanwhile, Bishop agreed with Dr. Jones and talked about the growing life sciences in Pasco and the need for more partnerships.
“Our challenge is to bring business to this county,” he said. “But, if we all work together, we can address the challenges we all face.”
And, speaking of those partnerships, Neuscheler said that Turner, as one of the leading health care builders in the U.S., always strives to be a good community partner, giving “opportunities to smaller, local companies to do business with us, with our Turner Construction School, which many of you already have gone through, and is something we’ve done since 1969. We will be holding another one of those in October.” She added that veteran- and minority-owned companies will definitely be offered the opportunity to participate in this process.
Neuscheler also noted that the hospital’s foundation should begin being built sometime in April or May, with vertical construction taking about six months once the foundation is laid.
The panelists all also talked about innovation as an important part of the new hospital, which includes in construction, doctors, nurses and other hospital personnel and the equipment that they will be using — from robotic surgery to 3D printing, artificial intelligence and more.
Walsh said that the merger with a respected partner like Florida Medical Clinic will help ensure that the right doctors will staff the hospital.
“One of our mottos,” Walsh said, “is that we don’t just care for you, we care about you.”
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