A 50-bed facility, with room to grow, could be the first occupant of a commerce park planned for the 8,000-home development project.
By JAMES THORNER, Times Staff Writer
Published December 4, 2005
University Community Health, which owns hospitals in Carrollwood and the University area, appears close to announcing plans for a 50-bed hospital on U.S. 41 in Land O'Lakes after years of struggling to expand north into the burgeoning Pasco County market.
The hospital would be the first tenant in a commerce park pitched by Dallas developer Terrabrook as part of its massive Connerton project.
Connerton's 5,000 acres encompass a former ranch southeast of U.S. 41 and State Road 52. Terrabrook plans a self-sufficient city of more than 8,000 homes, the first of which were occupied this fall.
Connerton general manager Stewart Gibbons declined to name the hospital, saying only "it's a group with whom you'd be familiar."
But UCH, which runs four Tampa Bay area hospitals totaling 1,019 beds, all but confirmed it was Connerton's mystery partner.
In addition to its flagship hospital near the University of South Florida, UCH runs University Community Hospital-Carrollwood, Helen Ellis Memorial Hospital in Tarpon Springs, and Sun Coast Hospital in Largo.
Asked if UCH would build at Connerton, hospital spokesman Pete Moberg urged patience pending an official announcement.
"Hopefully it won't be much longer and we can help you out a bit," Moberg said about the hospital's Pasco plans.
Phase 1 of the project would include a 50-bed hospital with an adjacent 90,000 square feet of medical offices, Gibbons said.
The initial "residential treatment and care facility" is scheduled to open before 2010. Connerton's plans show a hospital expansion before 2020 raising the number of beds to 200.
"It's definitely a front burner project for them," Gibbons said of his hospital partner.
The growing suburbs of central Pasco have no hospital to call their own. But with Land O'Lakes' and Wesley Chapel's population growing by thousands of people each year, health care companies are hot for the area.
East Pasco Medical Center, soon to renamed Florida Hospital Zephyrhills, owns 50 acres on Bruce B. Downs Boulevard. It needs permission from the state to open a multistory hospital in Wesley Chapel by 2010.
UCH failed to get approval last year to open a 42,000-square-foot, 50-bed long-term care hospital on State Road 54 in Wesley Chapel. Citing a wealth of such similar treatment centers in the region, the state Agency for Health Care Administration denied the application.
UCH's appeal is still pending, a fact Moberg cited for the company's delay in announcing a second Pasco location.
"Until things are lined up I'd prefer not to make a comment," Moberg said.
