AdventHealth has topped out a new freestanding emergency department at 1036 US Highway 92 West in Auburndale, Florida. The 13,000 SF building will hold 12 exam rooms, imaging, a lab and pediatric care. Robins & Morton is building it, with opening set for early next year.
Structural steel work has finished on a freestanding emergency department that AdventHealth is developing in Auburndale, Florida, where a topping out ceremony brought owner and contractor personnel together to sign the last beam set on the frame. Construction is underway at 1036 US Highway 92 West, a corridor carrying traffic between Lakeland and Winter Haven across central Polk County.
Plans call for a building of more than 13,000 SF containing 12 private exam rooms. Diagnostic capability on site will include X-ray, computed tomography and ultrasound, supported by a full service laboratory. Pediatric emergency treatment, pharmacy services and respiratory therapy are also programmed into the facility. Staffing projections put employment at more than 35 positions.
Freestanding emergency departments of this type operate as satellite departments of a licensed hospital rather than as independent facilities, and this one will be licensed under AdventHealth Heart of Florida. Operators across Florida have used the model to place emergency capacity in growth corridors at a smaller capital outlay than a full inpatient campus requires. Population data compiled by the University of Florida Bureau of Economic and Business Research shows Polk County near 850,000 residents with a projection of 1 million by 2030, a threshold now expected sooner than earlier forecasts indicated.