Medical Office Campus Planned Near New $129M Hospital

ORLANDO-The $129 million, 325,000-sf new Florida Hospital Waterman, scheduled to open its twin, six-story towers in July 2003, is generating a feverish race among retail, residential and medical office developers to debut at about the same time in Tavares, FL, a Lake County municipality of 8,000 permanent residents whose largest industry is a 1,000-cell county jail, 35 miles northwest of Downtown Orlando.

The newest planned project, directly across from the 204-bed hospital on U.S. 441 North, is Lakeview Professional Medical Office Park, an estimated 200,000-sf undertaking within the 47-acre Lakeview Center.

Nashville, TN-based Symbion Healthcare, a national surgery center developer and Mount Dora, FL-based GC Development Group plan to break ground by year end on a 12,000-sf outpatient surgery center whose estimated hard construction cost is $5 million or about $400 per sf, local construction industry estimators tell GlobeSt.com on condition of anonymity.