Lee Health broke ground Jan. 27 on a new 53-acre health care campus in Fort Myers that will include a 168-bed acute care hospital and a new musculoskeletal institute the system hopes will become a destination for those needing orthopedic surgery.
An audience of almost 300, consisting of Lee Health staff and board members, city of Fort Myers and Lee County officials, construction partners and community leaders, was on hand to hear details of the project, including 400,000 square feet of hospital space, 125,000 square feet of medical office and ambulatory surgery space and an 18,000-square-foot central energy plant.
The new Lee Health Fort Myers campus, with a total estimated cost of $481 million, will be located at 4453 Challenger Blvd., with the first phase of construction slated for completion in 2028. Lee Health officials said the current flagship hospital, 227-bed Lee Memorial on Cleveland Avenue, will remain open through 2027 to provide emergency care, inpatient beds and surgical services until the new hospital is fully operational.
Asked what the new campus will mean for health care in Lee County, system CEO and President Dr. Larry Antonucci said the system will be able to “expand and grow” with the rapidly growing region.
“As we run this state-of-the art facility here, it’s going to house a hospital, an outpatient surgery center and an office building to begin with, but there is a lot of room to do other things,” Antonucci said. “But mostly it’s going to be housing our Lee Health Musculoskeletal Institute, and that’s where I think we’re going to see incredible innovation over the next 20 years.”
In keeping with the goal of becoming a health care destination, future plans could include a hotel that could accommodate patients having surgery or other treatment after their discharge from the hospital, Antonucci said.
“There aren’t any immediate plans, but there is a space here for a hotel, so we anticipate that very well may be something that’s added in the future,” he said. “We’re not in the hotel business, but having a hotel adjacent to an orthopedic, a musculoskeletal hospital is a very common thing. People can have surgery, they can spend the night, come back to therapy and then maybe go home the next day.”
The 168-bed acute care hospital will include 24 ICU beds, a 44-bed emergency department and 10 inpatient operating rooms. The medical office building will include eight state-of-the-art operating rooms, which will be home to the Lee Health Musculoskeletal Institute.
