WESLEY CHAPEL - Central Pasco County, still without a hospital of its own, will get its first cancer clinic next year.
Dr. William Assad, a specialist in treating the disease with radiation, proposes opening Cypress Creek Cancer Center on the northeast corner of Interstate 75 and State Road 56.
Assad runs a radiation oncology practice on S Armenia Avenue called Hyde Park Cancer Center. For his expansion into Pasco, he's opening a 14,608-square-foot medical office.
After years of neglecting central Pasco, physicians are starting to flood the community. It's not just doctors' offices, like the modern glass Point of Care Clinic west of State Road 54 and I-75.
Two hospitals also plan arrivals in the next decade:one on Bruce B. Downs Boulevard, another in Land O'Lakes' Connerton community.
In May, Assad paid $310,000 for an acre in the Cypress Creek development east of I-75. He'll be part of a cluster of doctors' offices nestled in a mixed-use development of hotels, stores, car dealerships, apartments and office parks.
