Florida’s healthcare real estate market continues to expand as major health systems move closer to fast-growing residential communities. From The Villages and West Palm Beach to Fort Myers, Orlando and Broward County, new hospitals, outpatient centers, surgery facilities and medical office buildings are being planned or built to meet rising demand for care closer to home.
The project is being described as Southwest Florida’s largest healthcare construction project to date.
The 53-acre campus, which broke ground in January 2025, is now set to include a four-story, 118,000-square-foot patient tower.
A key component is a musculoskeletal institute connected to the hospital on Challenger Boulevard that could become a destination center attracting patients from outside the region.
Lee Health has completed the renovation and expansion of its Gulf Coast Medical Center in Fort Myers, Florida.
The $242 project comprised a 365,700-square-foot expansion and a renovation of 48,500 square feet of healthcare space that included adding new hospital beds and intensive care units (ICUs) and expanding the central energy plant.
A three-story vertical expansion added 216 patient rooms on top of an existing bed tower. The project also added a new three-story care tower with 52 ICU rooms, a 16-bay dialysis suite, and three new endoscopy and bronchoscopy procedure rooms.
To support the increased bed capacity, expansions and renovations were completed in the clinical laboratory spaces, pharmacy department, food services, public dining space, back-of-the-house services, and the central energy plant. A total of 43 phases were delivered as part of the overall project.
Source: Healthcare Design