NCH Plans Estero Medical Complex

Medical office – middle-aged male doctor greeting patient, shaking hands.

Liz Freeman

The NCH Healthcare System plans to open a freestanding emergency room and other medical programs in Estero by fall 2018. The proposed location is 3.5 acres on the west side of U.S. 41 across from Coconut Point mall.

The project, NCH Healthcare Estero, will cost $30 million and create 80 jobs, along with elevating competition with the Lee Health system. The project will be two stories and encompass 40,000 square feet.

The two hospital groups have been jostling for market dominance in fast-growing Estero and Bonita Springs for years.

The publicly run Lee Health and its board of directors recently signed off on spending $140 million to build a vast outpatient- based medical campus on a 30 acre site at Coconut Point that will include a freestanding ER. Lee Health’s plans for the outpatient complex is an alternative to an 80-bed hospital that south Lee residents clamored for and that state regulators rejected during a first-round application in 2014. NCH fought the hospital proposal, and Lee Health officials decided to drop it instead of pursuing it in a second go-around.

NCH has submitted its Estero plans, called a development order, to the Village of Estero. The first of two public hearings and consideration before the design review board is scheduled for Wednesday. “In our ongoing effort to bring the highest quality medical services to the residents and visitors of Southwest Florida, NCH is excited to announce plans for NCH Healthcare Estero,” Dr. Allen Weiss, president and chief executive officer of NCH, said in a statement.

The NCH emergency department and outpatient imaging center will be on the first floor, and NCH Physician Group offices, an outpatient surgery and endoscopy center, will be on the second floor. Weiss said the physician offices will be staffed with six primary care and specialty physicians.

The Lee Health project is a 163,000 square-foot complex with an emergency room, imaging, outpatient surgery, diagnostics, a rehabilitation center, pharmacy and other services.

The complex is projected to see 50,000 patient visits the first year, with 10,000 patient visits in the ER alone.
“Lee Health has been working for a long time with the South Lee County community to expand medical services
and keep health care close to home,” Lee Health spokeswoman Mary Briggs said in a statement. “Lee Health is fully committed to a new, comprehensive outpatient medical village, which is scheduled to open in fall 2018.

Briggs said Lee Health-Coconut Point will be a health care destination that offers integrated medical and wellness services with an “unrivaled patient and family- friendly culture and experience that is unmistakable as soon as you enter the facility.”

NCH submitted its development order April 7 to the Village of Estero, said Walter McCarthy, development review manager. The review process can take two to three months. NCH officials are anxious to get started, he said. “They are ready to go,” McCarthy said.

The Estero complex will be similar to what’s offered at NCH Healthcare Northeast at Immokalee Road and Collier Boulevard in North Naples, where there is a freestanding emergency department that NCH opened in 2015.
The practice model used there will be adopted for the Estero program.

“We are excited about building this new facility and are modeling it after NCH Healthcare Northeast, which offers similar services and sees approximately 17,000 patients annually in the free-standing emergency department,” NCH spokeswoman Debbie Curry said.

The outpatient imaging center at the planned Estero complex will provide ultrasound, digital X-ray, MRI and CT services. The outpatient surgery and endoscopy center will have two advanced surgical suites.

New Medical Facilities in Estero & Bonita Springs

Lee Memorial Health Systems plans for new medical facilities in Estero and Bonita Springs include a free-standing emergency room, surgery center and more at Coconut Point to open in 2018, and an integrative medical practice to Bonita Bay Lifestyle Center in the Promenade Shopping Center on US 41.

There seems to be no end in sight to south Lee County’s recent growth spurts.

As new senior housing facilities and corporate headquarters continue to sprout up in both Estero and Bonita Springs, residents soon can look forward to new medical facilities in their backyard. Lee Memorial Health System officials Wednesday presented updates to plans that will bring a comprehensive medical village to Coconut Point and medical practices to Bonita Bay’s lifestyle center.

DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL
Listening to the updates — at the Bonita Springs Estero Economic Development Council’s second quarterly open meeting — were business owners, city officials and members of the public.

‘In 2005, 2006, Lee Memorial Health System recognized that south Lee County was the next hot pocket of growth in Lee County,’ said Suzanne Bradach, special projects manager for Lee Memorial. ‘And so we acquired about 31 acres located right behind the Bonita Community Health Center in Estero.’ She gave a 30-minute presentation on the two expansion projects.

MEDICAL CAMPUS
Lee Memorial’s original plan was to build an 80-bed hospital on the land, but it did not get state approval for the proposal.

Lee Memorial then shifted its focus to building a 136,900-square-foot medical campus. The plans include specialty- care physicians, primary care physicians, a freestanding 24/7 emergency room, a surgery center, a healthy life medical center for chronic disease management, a clinical-decision support unit to hold patients for less than 24 hours and ancillary services, such as imaging, rehabilitation and laboratories. ‘We started to rethink how we could deliver health care in a unique and progressive way,’ Bradach said. ‘We want it to be a health and wellness destination.’

The cost for the project has been estimated at $70 million, Bradach said. Requests for qualifications from architects and construction management companies have been sent out and are expected back by July 16. About 40 companies have expressed interest, and the top three in each category will be selected to present their proposals in late August.

After contracts are approved in October, Bradach said, a nine-month-long design process will start the next month. Construction is expected to begin in February 2017. The facility will open in mid-2018 and create 200 to 250 jobs, Bradach said. The design of the project will be sensitive to the Estero’s aesthetic guidelines. ‘We’re going to try to keep that kind of Mediterranean flowing campus like feel to the best of our ability,’ Bradach said.

Additionally, in collaboration with Bonita Bay, Lee Memorial soon will open an ‘integrative medicine practice,’ internal medicine practice and rehabilitation center on the third floor of the Bonita Bay Lifestyle Center at 26800 U.S. 41 S., north of the Promenade Shopping Center.

‘Integrative medicine takes both the Eastern and Western approach to a person’s health,’ Bradach said, adding it combines spiritual and medical aspects. “It looks at the whole entire person and not just a piece of the body.”
The third floor of the Bonita Bay-owned facility will house a fellowship-trained physician, primary-care physicians and a rehab team and will be open to the public, Bradach said. It is expected to open in about a month.

Bonita Springs Councilman Bill Lonkart, one of the dozens of people attending the meeting, said both projects are needed. “It’s a great idea,” Lonkart said. “Seventy percent of the people (in Bonita) that have to go to the hospital go to a Naples location. ‘So it’s a good thing. It’s going to be a modern thing.’

By Patrick Riley patrick.riley@naplesnews.com 239-263-4825