An area Pasco County planners hoped would become an expansive medical park has moved a big step in that direction as Florida Medical Clinic prepares to start construction on an 85,000-square-foot facility near Florida Hospital Wesley Chapel.
(Courtesy of Florida Medical Clinic)
The new three-story building will offer a variety of medical services, the kind of one-stop shopping Florida Medical Clinic is known for in other parts of Pasco and Hillsborough counties. But this particular facility will have an extra emphasis on orthopedic care.
“We don’t have an orthopedic presence in Wesley Chapel right now,” said Gus Taylor, Florida Medical Clinic’s chief administrative officer. “We have some in Zephyrhills and Tampa, and some in the Carrollwood area, but this will help us bring all this to Wesley Chapel.”
The Wesley Chapel location will be built at 2352 Bruce B. Downs Blvd., just north of State Road 56 and the Wesley Chapel hospital. Florida Medical Clinic bought a little more than 10 acres of land there last October for $4 million, according to Pasco County property records. It was part of land owned by the Wiregrass Ranch development group since 1987.
This is the third major location Florida Medical Clinic has built in the past five years, beginning with its second-largest facility on State Road 54 in Land O’ Lakes opened in 2009, and its new Carrollwood facility in a building that once housed a Borders book store on North Dale Mabry Highway, that opened last year.
And 2013 was a busy year for Florida Medical Clinic as the company focused a bit on Zephyrhills. It expanded its main campus at Market Square to open a new urgent care facility, and built a 12,000-square-foot office on Eiland Boulevard it shares with DaVita Healthcare Partners Inc.
Putting doctors of various specialties under a single roof has been a successful formula for Florida Medical Clinic in Zephyrhills, Land O’ Lakes and Carrollwood, and Taylor says he expects more success with the new Wesley Chapel facility.
“We have a lot of physicians in the Seven Oaks area that are in independent buildings,” he said. “This helps us provide more services for our patients. It’s extremely convenient when you can go to one location and see all of your doctors and primary doctors.”
And its proximity to Florida Hospital Wesley Chapel will provide even more benefits, similar to what happens at its main campus, located just blocks from Florida Hospital Zephyrhills.
Deciding when and where to build and consolidate is an organic process for Florida Medical Clinic, usually based on the number of doctors and specialists the company has partnered with, and where they are located. The Wesley Chapel facility might be the last one for a little while, at least.
“Currently, we don’t have that in any other locations in mind,” Taylor said. “But it wouldn’t surprise me if we didn’t put another building out there somewhere in the near future to create the same presence in that area, as we’re getting in some of our current ones.”
Florida Medical Clinic is still working on permits for its Wesley Chapel location as well as design, but the goal is to have the facility open by Summer 2015.
“It’s a great location,” Taylor said. “We all know the Wesley Chapel area is growing, and there are a lot of new neighborhoods and a lot of new businesses coming up there. With the new hospital there, this has become a great location for our patients.”
Published March 12, 2014
