Pointing to opportunities to conduct research and serve an aging population, Florida State University this week will seek approval to issue $413.9 million in bonds to build a hospital in Panama City Beach.
The State University System’s Board of Governors will be asked Wednesday to sign off on the bonds, after the Florida State University Board of Trustees meets earlier in the day on the issue.
The hospital is planned to be finished by December 2027 and would open with 80 beds, according to documents prepared for Wednesday’s board meetings. The university would enter a long-term lease and management agreement with Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare to operate the facility under the “FSU Health” brand.
“The project will include a 20-bed emergency room and a comprehensive imaging center, and will offer specific procedural areas dedicated to cardiology, gastroenterology and pulmonary medicine, which are significant areas of focus for serving a growing regional geriatric population,” a document for the FSU trustees meeting said. “Additionally, the project will facilitate important biomedical and clinical research opportunities for the university as it continues to grow its research portfolio.”
A document prepared for the university system’s Board of Governors Facilities Committee said the first phase is part of a “long-term plan that will eventually expand the hospital’s footprint to 600 beds as part of a planned 87-acre medical campus to include additional medical office buildings and parking.”
The documents said the bonds would be paid off through reimbursements FSU receives from federal, state and private research grants.
FSU has long operated a Panama City campus and has had ties to Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare. In September, for example, FSU and the health system broke ground on an academic health center in Tallahassee.
Also, in 2023, FSU, Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare and The St. Joe Co., a major developer and landowner in Northwest Florida, announced the start of construction on a health care campus in Panama City Beach.
While initial plans called for projects such as building a medical office building, which opened in July, a news release from FSU at the time said they also included a “100-bed hospital with an emergency center and other inpatient services, including surgery, cardiology procedures and imaging, to be complete by the end of 2027.”
A summary provided for this week’s Board of Governors meeting said the hospital would be adjacent to a TMH Partners and Urgent Care facility. The hospital would be on an 18-acre donated site that is part of an 87-acre parcel owned by St. Joe, the summary said.
Patients in the area expected to be served by the hospital currently are served by Ascension Sacred Heart Bay and HCA Florida Gulf Coast hospitals, according to the summary. It said an analysis indicated the project “will capture significant market share from Ascension and HCA in the ZIP codes immediately surrounding the project’s location.”
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