Poinciana Hospital Still On Track To Get Built

Posted by: Lilsis on: June 15, 2010

• In: News | Osceola County | Polk County
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Originally found at http://www.allbusiness.com/health-care/health-care-facilities-hospitals/14619395-1.html
Written by, MICHAEL W. FREEMAN

The new hospital that Osceola Regional Medical Center plans to establish in Poinciana is still on track to get built, and the firm constructing it has even purchased some land for the facility.

That was the good news that Dan Miller, president of Hospital Corporation of America,

brought to a standing room only audience June 1 at the Poinciana Community Center.

“I know that a lot of you have had a very positive impact on this hospital,” Miller said. “This is one of those communities where I really believe that the community support for this hospital really made it happen.”

The crowd wasn’t quite as pleased, though, when Miller noted that it could take longer than initially expected – and possibly by the middle of next year – before construction work could begin.

“When is all this going to happen?” Miller asked. “Right now we’re in the process of finding a developer. I would hope we would have something under construction in the next six to eight months.”

This has been a major project for the fast-growing community that cuts across Polk and Osceola counties, and now has a population that exceeds 70,000. But Osceola Regional Medical Center’s initial bid for state approval to build a hospital in Poinciana was challenged by neighboring hospitals, including Heart of Florida Regional Medical Center in Haines City and St. Cloud Regional Medical Centers, which argued that a third major hospital in the area would exacerbate an already problematic nursing shortage.

Osceola Regional finally received a preliminary certificate of need from the state in March 2009, and was given an 18-month time frame to begin construction. As Miller noted, HCA West Florida, which is building the medical center for Poinciana, asked for state permission to extend that deadline from 18 to 36 months – a request the state approved.

“They took that action as the economy was tanking and hospitals we’re going to them saying ‘We cannot get this hospital started yet because we can’t get the funding,’” Miller said.

Miller said HCA wants to begin construction much sooner than the new deadline of March 2012.

“That is the timeline we are working on,” he said. “I am not going to stand here and say we are waiting until February 2012 to get things started. I don’t think that’s the case.”

The good news, he said, is that HCA has concluded land negotiations with Avatar, the main developer in Poinciana, and signed a contract last month for 10 acres of land where a new Poinciana Emergency and Outpatient Care Center will be built. HCA also has an option to purchase an additional 30 acres of property.

“We have a two-year option on the other 30 acres,” Miller said. “Why am I going to pay our good friends at Avatar two years in advance?”

He added that HCA would not need to secure bank financing to get construction started.

“We don’t go out and get debt financing to build hospitals,” he said. “We build hospitals out of our own cash flow.”

Although residents would have liked to have seen the project get built faster, “I think we’ve made good progress,” he said.

As for how quickly construction could begin, he added, “It takes about 18 months for the actual construction of the hospital. We hope to be open by 2012. I’m just trying to be honest, guys. This is all good news. In the world of hospital construction, this is not a bad timetable. What I am giving you is my best guess after being with this company for 30 years. We don’t wait until the last minute because when we do, things go wrong.”

The best news, he said, is that “What you will have when this is finished is the most modern, up-to-date hospital in the state of Florida.”

Despite the delayed timeline for this project, local residents welcomed the news that it was still moving forward.

“At the very least, the contracts have been signed,” said Wendy Farrell, the former chairwoman of the Poinciana Area Council.

Poinciana resident and business owner Allan Collins urged Miller to consider using this construction project to create jobs in the community.

“There’s probably only two contractors in the state that can handle a project like this,” he said.

“Will you pledge that the majority of the contractors will come from Osceola County and Polk County or Central Florida?”

Miller said his firm uses contractors from around the entire country and couldn’t make a pledge like that, while Brian Marger, the COO of Osceola Regional Medical Center, added, “We’re in an area where there’s a pretty good pool of talented labor to work on this.”