Medical Office, Hospital Expansions Among Orlando’s Largest Proposed Health Projects This Year

There’s no lack of health care projects in Orlando so far in the first six months of 2022 — bringing more construction and jobs into the area.

Major care systems like AdventHealth and Orlando Health are finishing up respective projects estimated in the millions of dollars.

For example, Orlando Health has plans to wrap up its $341 million, 370,000-square-foot Orlando Health Jewett Orthopedic Center during 2023. Also, Altamonte Springs-based AdventHealth is finishing its 12-story, 300,000-square-foot Innovation Tower medical office building in downtown Orlando later this year and is preparing a new freestanding emergency department and medical office on the former site of The Holy Land Experience in Orlando’s Millenia neighborhood.

Nationally, the activity is following the same trend. Raleigh, North Carolina-based FMI Corp. expects health care construction spending in the U.S. to go from $53 billion in 2022 to $62 billion in 2025. That is due to demand for services for an aging population and the addition of people to certain parts of the country.

Jeff Butler, senior pre-construction manager in Florida for Birmingham, Alabama-based Robins & Morton, previously told Orlando Business Journal his company has seen a lot of local health care systems and companies invest in facilities due to the area’s population growth and other factors.

“We are seeing more health systems add capacity to their hospital campuses, from inpatient beds to emergency, imaging and specialty care services,” Butler said. “We believe some of this is a response to the lack of bed availability throughout the Covid pandemic, but we also believe it’s a reaction to aging infrastructure.”

Here are some of the largest health care projects proposed so far in metro Orlando:

Healthcare Trust of America Olympus medical office

• Cost: Estimated at $100 million
• Description: Healthcare Trust of America (NYSE: HTA) has proposed 175,000 square feet of space, including a 96,000-square-foot building in the first phase inside the Olympus mixed-use development in Clermont. The Scottsdale, Arizona-based company is targeting the start of construction either this December or January 2023.

AdventHealth’s two new medical office buildings

• Cost: Roughly $30 million each, $60 million total
• Description: AdventHealth will open a new three-story, 58,000-square-foot medical office building with an outpatient surgical center at 950 Rinehart Road in Lake Mary early next year and a new two-story, 36,000-square-foot medical office building will open at 5821 S. Williamson Blvd. in Port Orange in October. Both projects are located next to existing freestanding emergency rooms.

HCA Florida Poinciana Hospital expansion

• Cost: $9.9 million
• Description: HCA will build out 13,000 square feet of shell space in the hospital, expanding the hospital’s intensive care unit capacity from six to 12 bed and adding 18 inpatient beds to reach a total of 94. The project is expected to wrap up in spring 2023 after starting construction in May.

Orlando Health Center for Rehabilitation conversion

• Cost: Not listed
• Description: Orlando Health is establishing its first rehabilitation hospital in the region by converting the Orlando Health Center for Rehabilitation on the campus of Orlando Health – Health Central Hospital in Ocoee into a 54-bed inpatient facility. The hospital will have room to expand up to 100 beds in the future and is expected to start taking patients in 2023.