Two new hospitals will be added to Southwest Florida's growing population with one breaking ground this week and the other getting approval to go forward.
Construction was initiated Monday at Lee Health’s new state-of-the-art healthcare campus at a 53-acre site located at the intersection of Colonial and Challenger Boulevards. Meanwhile, on Tuesday the Sarasota County Public Hospital Board approved a $450 million plan today to build North Port’s first hospital on North Sumter Boulevard in North Port.
As part of Monday's Lee County celebration, Lee Health unveiled images and video footage showcasing the future campus.
Attendees were treated to a sneak peek of detailed renderings and an animated video featuring drone footage of the site combined with a virtual fly-through of the cutting-edge facility. The visuals provide a glimpse into the exciting future of healthcare in Southwest Florida, with the first phase of construction slated for completion in 2028.
“Today’s groundbreaking is more than just the start of construction; it’s a celebration of the Fort Myers community and the future of healthcare that Lee Health is committed to bringing,” said Dr. Larry Antonucci, president and CEO of Lee Health. “This campus represents our commitment to meeting the growing needs of Southwest Florida and ensuring our residents and visitors have access to world-class medical care for generations to come.”
The campus is designed to serve as a healthcare destination, featuring:
- An acute care hospital with up to 168 beds, including 24 ICU beds and a 44-bed emergency department, and ten inpatient operating rooms.
- A Medical Office Building with eight state-of-the-art operating rooms, which will be home to the Lee Health Musculoskeletal Institute.
- Over 400,000 square feet of hospital space, 125,000 square feet of medical office and ambulatory surgery space, and an 18,000-square-foot central energy plant.
The Sarasota County facility will be a 6-story, 100-bed hospital built on an undeveloped 32-acre parcel Sarasota Memorial Health Care System owns in the 4900 block of North Sumter Boulevard near I-75.
Sarasota Memorial Hospital-North Port will be the health system’s third acute-care hospital and fulfills a longstanding request from the City of North Port for a hospital of its own. With more than 95,000 residents, North Port is the largest city in Sarasota County, both in land mass and population, and one of the fastest growing in the nation.
“Building a hospital in North Port has been part of our strategic plan and goals for many years, and I could not be more excited to break ground in 2025 during our centennial year,” Sarasota Memorial Health Care System President & CEO David Verinder said after Tuesday’s vote by the Hospital Board. “It has taken time to build the medical infrastructure necessary to support the city’s first hospital, but we feel confident moving forward that we have the commitment and resources to ensure its success.”
Hospital staff worked with North Port and other regulatory officials throughout 2024 to obtain the initial approvals needed to begin developing a medical campus on the Sumter site, as well as a new campus in nearby Wellen Park. The plan approved Tuesday reflects the first phase of development, which includes a hurricane-hardened, 305,000-square-foot hospital, 60,000-square-foot medical office building and back-up energy center.
Site preparation will begin immediately, followed by a groundbreaking ceremony later this year. SMH estimates it will take approximately 30 months to complete construction.
Slated to open in the fall of 2028, the 100-bed hospital will offer a comprehensive range of emergency, medical, surgical and specialty care, a full complement of diagnostic and outpatient services, and primary and specialty physician practices in the adjacent medical office building.
The first floor of the hospital will include emergency, diagnostic, administrative and support services; the second floor will house surgical and procedural areas; and floors three to five will be dedicated patient care units with 100 private rooms for admitted patients.
The sixth floor is reserved for mechanical space and will provide the infrastructure that will allow the SMH to add three more patient care floors and expand the hospital capacity to 208 beds in a future phase.
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