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By LEON M. TUCKER
© St. Petersburg Times, published June 12, 2001
SAFETY HARBOR -- A group of Clearwater cancer doctors has announced plans to build a $4-million treatment center.
"We decided the community needed a technologically advanced cancer facility that could be the showpiece for the Tampa Bay area," said Ed Mercado, administrator for Pinellas Radiation Oncology Associates. "We want to provide the community with radiation oncology services that they would normally find at a national cancer institute or a large university."
The four doctors bought a little less than 2 acres on McMullen-Booth Road south of Briar Creek Boulevard in February.
Construction on the 7,800-square-foot building, called Countryside Cancer Center, should be completed by January 2002. Robert Geisler, Michael Gauwitz, Norman Brodsky and Patrick Thomas are the primary owners.
The building will be a quarter-mile south of Mease Countryside Hospital.
"That is where our referring doctor base is primarily located," Mercado said. "We wanted to have ease of access to the doctors who refer patients with cancer to us for care."
Physicians from 15 bay area hospitals refer patients to the Pinellas Radiation Oncology Associates.
"There is a market for that up in north county because, a lot of time, for people who do have cancer, it's not convenient to do much traveling," said Commissioner Keith Zayac, who voted to approve the plan and has a 7-year-old who is battling an aggressive childhood form of cancer. "It will be an advantage to the hospital and a benefit to our community."
Commissioners approved a previous plan for the site at 3155 McMullen-Booth Road in 1998, when there was talk of constructing a two-story, 9,200-square-foot office building. Work never was performed. Two years later, commissioners approved another two-story building, this time at 18,500 square feet. Finally, the doctors bought the land and submitted plans for the cancer center.
"There is a real opportunity for both pediatric and adult cancer centers to make great strides and use technology that, a lot of times, is not in the state of Florida," Zayac said "I just hope they can find a way to develop that site because the last two people that came in didn't."