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Hospital Plan's 1st Stage Is OK'd

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By KEVIN WIATROWSKI

kwiatrowski@tampatrib.com

Published: November 21, 2008

WESLEY CHAPEL - County officials gave a thumbs-up Thursday to the first stage of an 80-bed hospital campus in the heart of Wesley Chapel.

The first stage of the hospital complex - a joint venture by Adventist Health Services and University Community Health - will be a 90,000-square-foot office building just east of Bruce B. Downs Boulevard, about a mile north of State Road 56.

Work on that building could start next year. Adventist and UCH eventually plan to build another office building and a 900,000-square-foot hospital on the 52-acre property.

The first phase of construction also includes the northern side of a ring road that will eventually circle the complex. An interior road will link the hospital with the Shops at Wiregrass mall to the south.

The hospital complex will also include a park-and-ride lot to serve Tampa-bound commuters. It's unclear when that lot might open.

The Development Review Committee delayed action on an exemption to county zoning that would let the new hospital climb as high as seven stories. Buildings in that section of Pasco County generally are limited to three stories without special permission.

The approval by the Development Review Committee came less than a month after a state judge affirmed the 2007 certificate of need the state's Agency for Health Care Administration issued to Adventist and UCH.

Two competing hospitals, Pinellas County-based Baycare Health System and Community Hospital of New Port Richey, challenged the certificate, saying they had better plans for serving south-central Pasco County residents. They failed to convince Administrative Law Judge David Maloney, though.

Baycare recently won approval for a future helicopter landing site on land it owns in the Seven Oaks development across Bruce B. Downs and north of the Adventist-UCH site. Company officials said last month that they are considering their options for the Seven Oaks property.

Reporter Kevin Wiatrowski can be reached at (813) 948-4201.

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