Orlando Health is taking steps to build its next Central Florida hospital.
The nonprofit health system plans to construct a 573,149-square-foot, 240-bed medical campus on 15.1 acres at 9349 Randal Park Blvd. in southeast Orlando, near the fast-growing Lake Nona community. Construction already is underway on this site for a three-story, 42,000-square-foot freestanding emergency room, which is expected to be completed this summer.
Orlando Health has requested a change to its prior master plan to allow for the hospital use in the future, according to the agenda of the Orlando City Council meeting on April 26. A timetable for future work was not immediately available, other than the fact that it will be built in four phases.
Orlando Health spokeswoman Nicole Ray told Orlando Business Journal that additional development will be based on the community's needs.
The future phases are proposed as follows, per city documents:
- Phase 2: A 60-bed, 263,885-square-foot, five-story bed tower with shell space, along with a 178,000-square-foot, four-story parking garage. Start date not determined; construction will take 14 months.
- Phase 3: A five-story, 107,614-square-foot, 60-bed West Tower addition with shell space, plus a four-story, 83,600-square-foot parking garage expansion. Construction may start about four to six years after Phase 2 is completed, but market demand may push it out as far as 10 to 15 years after.
- Phase 4: A future five-story, 79,650-square-foot, 30-bed East Tower addition, along with a four-story, 74,200-square-foot parking garage expansion — representing the campus' full buildout. No timeline was revealed.
Meanwhile, health care is expected to be one of the nation's the top industries for employment growth during the next decade. Industry employment is projected to grow 15% from 2019-2029, adding roughly 2.4 million new jobs, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data showed.
Construction of facilities like Orlando Health's planned new hospital is key to the Central Florida economy as it till add both temporary construction and permanent health care jobs.
Orlando Health, which had $4.5 billion in 2020 revenue, is a 3,200-bed system with $7.1 billion in assets. Nearly 4,200 physicians have privileges across the system. During fiscal 2020, Orlando Health served nearly 150,000 inpatients and 3.1 million outpatients.
Orlando Health owns nine Central Florida hospitals, including Orlando Regional Medical Center, Dr. P. Phillips Hospital, South Seminole Hospital, Health Central Hospital, the Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children, Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women & Babies, South Lake Hospital, Horizon West Hospital and St. Cloud Hospital, as well as Bayfront Health St. Petersburg. It also owns 13 urgent care centers in the region, as well as several cancer centers, freestanding ERs and more. It is one of the region's largest employers, with 22,000 workers.
Source: https://www.bizjournals.com/orlando/news/2021/04/26/orlando-health-plans-new-hospital-near-lake-nona.html