NORTH PORT, Fla. — Less than a year after opening a new hospital in Venice, Sarasota Memorial Health Care System has started laying the ground works on a new medical campus and hospital in North Port.
The new hospital will be built on a 32-acre undeveloped site off of Sumter Boulevard near I-75. Sarasota Memorial purchased the plot of land back in 2007.
“Building a hospital in North Port has been part of our strategic plan and a longstanding goal of city and hospital leaders for many years,” Sarasota Memorial Health Care System President & CEO David Verinder said in a statement. “As we had hoped, the new Venice hospital is expanding and bringing our extensive physician base further south, which provides the support and specialty services we need to move forward with a full-service hospital in North Port."
Hospital leaders met with North Port leaders on Tuesday to talk about the timeline and preliminary plans before construction begins. It will reportedly take around three years to plan and actually begin building SMH-North Port.
There will also be an SMH-North Port Neighborhood Advisory Council created to "solicit input and feedback from nearby residents and businesses as plans unfold."
“If the pre-construction and permitting work proceeds as planned, we hope to see the foundation taking shape in 2025, the same year we celebrate our health system’s 100th anniversary,” Verinder said in a statement.
The new hospital in North Port will be the health system's third acute-care hospital and also the first hospital in the city that is now the largest city in Sarasota County both in land mass and population.
“The want and need for a first-class medical facility in the North Port community is palpable, and has been for many years,” City Manager Jerome Fletcher said in a statement. ”This meeting was just the beginning of the discussion, and the City looks forward to hearing more about how we can support the plans and the economic development opportunities a new hospital will bring to North Port.”
The size, cost and construction schedule for the hospital are still in the process of being finalized, and the health system is working on a design that will be both flexible and expandable.
Sarasota County Public Hospital Board Chair Sharon Wetzler DePeters said the new hospital will be a "historic milestone for the community."
“As the governing board for this vital public institution, we are proud of the critical role Sarasota Memorial and its exceptional staff have played in this community for nearly a century,” DePeters said in a statement. “After nine decades of caring for this community as a single hospital system, we now have a second hospital and soon will have a third to serve the growing south county region.
"It has taken years of careful forethought and planning, and will take considerable staffing and financial resources to achieve this milestone, but we have committed the resources to move forward immediately with the work needed to begin building SMH-North Port.”
Anyone wanting future updates on the new hospital and health care facilities in North Port, click here.