Construction began Oct. 18 for the new Plant City-based South Florida Baptist Hospital, which was originally scheduled for August but was delayed because of a surge of COVID-19 cases.
The hospital, owned by Tampa, Fla.-based BayCare, will be nearly twice the size of the current hospital at 420,000 square feet and will have six floors and two six-story towers, according to an Oct. 20 news release.
There will be 146 inpatient/observation private hospital rooms, 26 intensive care unit beds, a 30-bed emergency department, four interventional/cardiac catheterization suites, an eight-bed surgery center, a cesarean section room, and a 15-bed mother and baby unit.
The hospital will also have room for future expansion to 176 rooms. An 85,000-square-foot medical office will be on the campus as well.
About 800 team members and more than 250 physicians will work at the hospital.
"As our community continues to grow, we need to do the same. But we've run out of room at our current site. And that's why we're here today," President Karen Kerr said.