The economy may be down but something new is going up at one area hospital. North Florida Regional Medical Center announced this morning that they're planning a $58 million dollar expansion project.
They said patient care is at the "heart" of their growth.
North Florida's newly announced expansion comes just before the conclusion of another $35 million dollar project that will be finished by September 2011.
The new project will bring more beds, more maternity and neonatal care and a focus on heart and vascular services.
Cardiovascular Center Director Reida Squires said, "We've been waiting for this, we're very excited!"
Squires has been working at North Florida for 29 years. When she first started as a Cath Lab technician, things were very different at the hospital. She said, "We've sort of just outgrown our facility here, we're just thinking this will be an opportunity for us to deliver much more efficient services to all of our patients having everything in one spot, they can come to one central location."
The new project will consolidate all the heart and vascular services into one location, while increasing the Cath Lab capacity. Medical Director Dr. Scott Medley said this will meet a need in the community. He said, "We think this will indeed help us with these capacity issues and obviously it will be a relief for us to have more beds where we can offer more services to all the people who come to us."
The new four-story patient tower will go in front of the hospital. The tower will increase overall capacity by 92 beds and allow the addition of a Level II Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and 20 more postpartum beds.
Medley said the new facilities will provide an economic boost for the area too. He said, "We'll be creating jobs across many different sectors, first of all cause all the construction jobs that will come about with this 58 million dollar expansion, then when the expansion is completed of course we'll be creating jobs across many sectors."
It's an announcement that's getting the entire staff excited.
Squires said, "We've been talking about it for a really long time and knowing that it's in the works but not having the final word out, like so we were very excited today to hear that everything had finally been cemented and that we know it's going to happen."
The design for the new tower and renovations isn't finished yet.
But the funding is confirmed and the two-year construction process is scheduled to start in September of 2011. The culmination of all the construction will be $120 million dollars worth of change to North Florida Regional Medical Center.