BayCare Health System will build a new $326 million hospital and medical office building in Plant City and relocate South Florida Baptist Hospital there, the company announced Tuesday.
Plans call for up to 150 private patient rooms with the ability to add 30 more in a future expansion, according to a release from BayCare.
Construction is expected to begin next summer and take 2 ½ years to complete.
“We are committed to providing extraordinary care to our patients and are excited about the opportunity to build a new hospital to extend this mission as we continue to serve our patients in Plant City and the surrounding communities,” the hospital’s president Karen Kerr said in the release.
The location off of Interstate 4 near the intersection of E. Sam Allen Road and N. Park Road is about four miles from the existing hospital, which opened on North Alexander Street in 1953.
The office building will be 85,000 square feet and serve physicians who want to work close to the hospital.
South Florida Baptist has undergone 12 major additions over the past six decades, including a heart and vascular center added in 2017.
“After 67 years, we have run out of room to expand the hospital on its present site,” Kerr said. “Also, retrofitting the hospital’s infrastructure to meet the growing technological advances in health care solutions is often an expensive and challenging option. Because of that, we feel that to better meet the growing needs of our community, we need to relocate and build a new hospital.”
More than 1,000 people work at the hospital, including 250 physicians.
Baycare is a not-for-profit health care system that has 15 hospitals and hundreds of other locations throughout the greater Tampa Bay region and central Florida.
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