St. Joseph's Baptist Healthcare wants 55 acres rezoned in case it wants to expand.
By JANET ZINK
Published February 27, 2004
Thirty years ago, St. Joseph's Baptist Healthcare in Tampa bought property in south Hillsborough County in anticipation of the area's growth. Now, with tens of thousands of new residents expected to move to the region, hospital officials are paving the way for a facility to meet the increased demand for health care services.
St. Joseph's recently filed a request with the county to rezone 55 acres south of Big Bend Road on Simmons Loop Road from agricultural to planned development.
Site plans show a 150-bed hospital and 220,000 square feet of medical offices. Those plans, though, are extremely tentative, said Terry McLaughlin, director of property and real estate for St. Joseph's.
"We have no specific plans at this time," McLaughlin said. "But to apply for the rezoning, we had to submit some type of a footprint. We're just trying to get the zoning in place that we think we'll need to put a facility in of any type."
Finalizing those plans could take years, McLaughlin said. The rezoning application is scheduled for final approval from the County Commission in June. After that, the hospital needs approval for the project from the state Agency for Health Care Administration.
Feedback from the community will dictate exactly what type of services to offer on the site, McLaughlin said. Hospital officials have been participating in the creation of the Riverview Community Plan to get a sense of what the area's needs are.
"It's been a great experience," McLaughlin said. "It seems to me, at the meetings we've attended, the residents and the county are open to us being down there."
South Bay Hospital in Sun City Center has expressed an interest in extending health care services to the Riverview area, said Lisa Kramer, who's coordinating the county's creation of the Riverview Community Plan.
St. Joseph's Baptist Healthcare consists of a network of clinics throughout the region, including several small outpatient centers in south Hillsborough and a busy pediatric clinic in Brandon. A 528-bed hospital, a 163-bed children's hospital and a 192-bed women's center on Martin Luther King Boulevard in Tampa anchor the system.
Three years ago, St. Joseph's announced plans to open a major health care facility on Van Dyke Road in northwest Hillsborough. The county approved the zoning for the project in 2001, and in October the hospital received preliminary approval from the Agency for Health Care Administration for the facility. It's slated to include a 76-bed hospital with an emergency room, an intensive-care unit, surgical services and an outpatient clinic.
Like the property in south Hillsborough, the Van Dyke Road parcel has been part of St. Joseph's long-term strategic plan for many years. That land was bought in 1986 with the expectation that the area would become heavily populated, a prediction that has become reality.
"The goal," McLaughlin said, "is to put yourself in position from a real estate perspective to grow as the the health care needs grow."
