Sarasota Memorial board approves $450 million Florida hospital
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Gus Iversen, Editor in Chief | February 03, 2025
Business Affairs
The Sarasota County Public Hospital Board has approved a $450 million plan to build North Port’s first hospital.
The six-story, 100-bed facility, named Sarasota Memorial Hospital–North Port, will be the third acute-care hospital in the Sarasota Memorial Health Care System. With a population of over 95,000, North Port is the largest city in Sarasota County and among the fastest-growing in the country.
“Building a hospital in North Port has been part of our strategic plan and goals for many years, and I could not be more excited to break ground in 2025 during our centennial year,” Sarasota Memorial Health Care System president and CEO David Verinder said following the board’s approval.
The initial phase of development includes a 305,000-square-foot, hurricane-hardened hospital, a 60,000-square-foot medical office building, and a backup energy center. Site preparation will begin immediately, with construction expected to take about 30 months. The hospital is slated to open in fall 2028.
Once completed, the facility will offer emergency, medical, surgical, and specialty care, as well as diagnostic and outpatient services. The adjacent medical office building will house primary and specialty physician practices. The hospital’s first floor will accommodate emergency and diagnostic services, while the second floor will be dedicated to surgical and procedural areas. The third through fifth floors will contain 100 private patient rooms. The sixth floor will be reserved for mechanical infrastructure, with plans to expand capacity to 208 beds in the future.
To support the hospital, SMH plans to recruit more than 70 physicians. Verinder noted that the 2021 opening of SMH-Venice helped expand the system’s physician base further south, which will assist in staffing the new facility.
North Port city officials welcomed the announcement.
“This is a landmark step for North Port,” city manager Jerome Fletcher said. “With today’s decision, the quality health care so many North Port residents have desired for years is finally on its way to our community, along with new career opportunities for our workforce.”
The hospital board will review plans this summer for SMH’s Wellen Park campus and its freestanding emergency room on Toledo Blade Boulevard.
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