North Florida Regional plans $110M in upgrades

North Florida Regional Medical Center is growing, and eda is hard at work to help make these plans a reality! Read all about the expansion in The Gainesville Sun‘s article.

North Florida Regional Medical Center announced a $110 million hospital renovation and expansion project, with plans to add three floors to its south tower, expand its emergency room, modernize its north tower and build a new parking garage.

North Florida Regional Medical Center CEO Eric Lawson said Wednesday the hospital will spend $70 million to expand its south tower, $20 million to renovate its north tower, and $17.5 million for a new parking garage.

And it will soon finish a $3 million renovation to its emergency room.

The south tower’s three-floor expansion will enhance the hospital’s neonatal, adult-intensive care and specialized orthopedic services, Lawson said.

The hospital’s new south tower levels will house 100 new beds, a dedicated orthopedic floor, as well as a postpartum/pre-birthing unit and a nursery, positioning the hospital to offer neonatal intensive care services to very premature or sick newborns, Lawson said.

The expansion costs, funded by the hospital’s ownership group, Hospital Corporation of America, include new equipment and construction costs, Lawson said.

“We’re extremely excited to expand our services in North Florida and beyond,” he said. “Many people don’t know that people as far as the Panhandle and Jacksonville to Orlando come for our services.”

Additionally, the hospital will spend $20 million to modernize its north tower, Lawson said, which will include new patient room equipment and new flooring.

The hospital’s emergency room has been under renovation since December.

Its 4,000 square feet of added space includes a dedicated lab, an electrocardiogram testing machine, a waiting room expanded to double its previous size, and five new patient bays to improve the efficiency of patient processing, Lawson said.

The hospital will also build a five-story, 895-space parking garage on the northeast side of the hospital for patients, visitors and staff. The garage will be designed so that two more floors can be added later, if needed.

The ER’s renovations are expected to be completed in the next couple of days. Lawson said one of the north tower floors will be renovated in the next two months.

The other projects will take longer, but it’s expected all of them should be completed within the next two years, Lawson said. Construction is being started as soon as possible.

Along with creating construction jobs, Lawson said the hospital’s new space should help create more than 100 jobs over the next five years.

Today, he said, the hospital has more than 3,300 physicians, nurses and volunteers.

When all the building is finished, the hospital will have spent more than $200 million to renovate and expand in the last 10 years.

The hospital unveiled its new south tower in 2013, marking the completion of a $145 million expansion project that began in 2008. That work included the addition of an $18.7 million cancer center in 2009, a $4 million electrophysiology catheterization lab, an expansion of its women’s center operating rooms and a 562-space parking garage.