Sarasota Memorial Hospital navigates expansion plans

By 2020, Sarasota Memorial Hospital hopes to have a new $220 million cancer treatment facility and a $12 million parking garage built at its midtown campus.

The projects will follow the construction of the hospital’s nine-story Courtyard Tower facility, built in 2013 as part of a $250 million campus improvement project.

They’ll also follow the opening of the hospital’s new Rehabilitation Pavilion, a $50 million undertaking completed in 2017.

The hospital’s growth over the past decade is significant. But Sarasota Memorial CEO David Verinder described it as an effort to fill in as many gaps as possible to make the hospital a well-rounded destination for residents.

“What we’re looking for is: What services do we not offer?” Verinder said. “What demands are in the community that are not being met? What are people leaving town for that we do not do?”

The cancer center, which the Sarasota County Public Hospital Board approved in January, reflects the hospital’s strategy to serve patients in a way it can’t today. In addition to an inpatient and surgical tower at the hospital’s main campus, the project will include an outpatient treatment center at the University Parkway campus.

The reason the hospital decided to move forward with that project is because it saw its number of cancer cases increase 20% between 2014 and 2016. It also heard patients ask for treatment designed for cancer survivors. The new facility is a response to the changing realities of the medical field.

“People are living longer, with their cancer either cured completely or managed like other chronic diseases,” said James Fiorica, the hospital’s chief medical officer.

All the construction does come with a challenge. The hospital is serving a growing number of people each year. There were nearly 1 million visits to Sarasota Memorial facilities in 2016. While new buildings are being built, the day-to-day operations of the hospital are still ongoing.

Verinder said avoiding disruptions to normal business at the hospital isn’t a seamless process. Still, the hospital takes strides to ensure visitors can get where they need to go as crews work on expanding the offerings at the SMH campus.

“We put out extra security, extra people to route patients and family around everything,” Verinder said. “We coordinate with the city.”

That coordination also extends to the surrounding neighborhoods and the Southside Village business district. Verinder said hospital representatives regularly attend neighborhood association meetings, working to make sure residents and merchants are up to date on the hospital’s plans and aware of how they might affect them.

Byron Diamond, a manager at Gecko’s Grill & Pub and president of the Southside Village Business Association, said the commercial district has a positive relationship with its neighbor to the north. He said the hospital does a good job of communicating information about its projects ahead of time, ensuring businesses know what construction is planned for the next two years.

In general, Diamond said, Southside Village sees the proximity of the growing hospital as an asset.

“It’s one of the largest employers in the county, so we’re happy to have them right at our doorstep,” Diamond said.

As it looks toward the future, Verinder said the hospital is continually identifying potential future projects and adding them to a strategic plan.

“I think our goal is always to be responsive to the community needs, to be sure we’re delivering value to the community, which is who actually owns us at the end of the day,” Verinder said