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Connerton Acute-Care Facility OK'd

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By JULIA FERRANTE, The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 9, 2007

LAND O' LAKES - University Community Hospital has received preliminary approval for a 50-bed, long-term, acute-care facility at a planned medical park in the Connerton community of central Pasco County.

The facility would be part of a larger Connerton Commerce Park, which is to include a 50,000-square-foot county building, 50,000 square feet of office and industrial space and 90,000 square feet of medical offices. Pasco County's Development Review Committee, a panel of top administrators that makes recommendations to the county commission, recently approved plans for the 175-acre development.

Connerton, which sits on about 4,800 acres southeast of State Road 52 and U.S. 41, eventually is to include 8,500 houses, 3 million square feet of office, retail and industrial space, parks, walking trails, and a fitness and aquatics complex.

University Community Hospital received a certificate of need for the Connerton facility in the spring of 2006, spokeswoman Phoebe Ochman said Monday. Hospital officials plan to start construction on a one-story, 48,000-square-foot facility in January and finish in about a year. The facility likely would be expanded in the future to offer diagnostic imaging, outpatient surgery and medical office space.

The planned acute-care facility in Connerton is independent of ongoing efforts for a joint medical facility at State Road 54 in Wesley Chapel with Adventist Health System, Ochman said. Other hospitals also are pursuing plans to expand in Pasco.

The Connerton facility is to be geared toward adult patients with chronic illnesses who need to stay in the hospital for two to three weeks, Ochman said. The hospital will have private rooms, an operating room for in-patient procedures, a chapel, gift shop and dining area. It is to be part of the University Community Health network of hospitals.

The hospital chose Connerton because of its central location in Pasco and its proximity to northern Hillsborough County, Ochman said.

'Strategically, we want to focus on expanding our business into Pasco County,' Ochman said. 'This was in the plans for a long time.'

The closest hospitals are University Community Hospital at Fletcher Avenue in Tampa and Florida Hospital Zephyrhills. The closest long-term, acute-care facilities are in St. Petersburg and South Tampa. St. Joseph's Hospital-North on Van Dyke Road in Lutz has plans to open in 2009.

University Community plans for a staff of about 65 at the Connerton facility in the first year and about 107 in the second year, Ochman said.

Reporter Julia Ferrante can be reached at (813) 948-4220 or jferrante@tampatrib.com.

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