USPS Publication Number 16300
T h i s C om mu n it y Ne w s p a p e r i s a p u bl i c a t ion of E s c a m b i a-S a nt a Ro s a B a r A s s o c i a t ion
Se r v i ng t he Fi r st Jud icia l Ci rcu it Section A, Page 1
Vol. 22, No. 17
V isit T he S ummation W eekly O nline : SummationWeekly.com
April 27, 2022
1 Section, 8 Pages
TRANSFORMING BAPTIST FOR THE FUTURE by Morgan Cole
B
aptist Health Care recently celebrated a major milestone during a topping out ceremony held in late February at the new state-of-the-art, 57-acre Baptist Health Care campus currently under construction off Interstate 110 in Pensacola.
In addition to Baptist Health Care leadership and special guests, more than 1,000 construction workers, contractors and subcontractors gathered at the new campus as crews lifted the final steel beam, which was signed by all of the workers, to the top of the 10-story main structure, signifying the completion of the framework of the new hospital building. A short presentation recognizing the achievement was held in what will soon become the “town square” of the campus, where members of the Baptist leadership team and Mayor Grover Robinson shared their excitement for the new campus project and the positive impact it will have in helping to better meet the health care needs of our community. The $636 million project sits on Brent Lane, just west of Interstate 110 and is seven acres larger than the existing hospital campus that has been located on E Street for more than 70 years. The original founders first broke ground on Baptist Hospital in 1949 with the purpose of bringing more modern health care to our community. Continuing with the original founders’ bold vision and legacy, Baptist remains invested in transforming health care in our community to help improve the quality of life. The groundbreaking event held for the campus marked the single largest investment in health care facilities, services and programs in Northwest Florida’s history. “The new Baptist Hospital campus will enable us to provide the next-level care that our community deserves. It will offer easier access, new and improved capabilities and the latest innovations in medical technology, all in a setting that has been thoughtfully designed to provide the utmost comfort to our patients and their families,” Baptist Health Care Foundation President and hospital CEO Mark Faulker explained. NWFL Business Climate Magazine had the chance to visit the new campus and gain a firsthand look at all of the progress being made as construction crews and the Baptist leadership team
continue forging ahead with plans to have the new 57-acre hospital campus completed by fall of next year. During our visit, we also had the opportunity to catch up with members of the Baptist leadership team including hospital President and CEO Mark Faulkner to learn more about the project. The new ‘health care campus will consist of a main 10-story, 263-bed acute care hospital as well as a six-story, 162-room Bear Foundation medical office building and a freestanding behavioral health care center. The main entrance to the hospital will include a town square with healing gardens, walking paths and open air spaces for special gatherings and classes. “Our goal is to create an environment that nurtures both health and healing,” Faulkner said. “This campus also provides a new entry into the City of Pensacola as travelers approach from the north.” The modern acute care hospital will serve as the heart of the new campus, with more than 602,000-square-feet of hospital rooms, 54 intensive care unit rooms, 12 private labor and delivery suites and 198 medical/ surgical rooms. The hospital will also include a Level II trauma center with 61 exam rooms and three triage areas. There will also be general medical and surgical rooms, critical care areas, a mother-baby unit and a surgery department with 25 procedure and operations rooms. Treatment and procedure rooms for specialized cardiac care will also be located within the main hospital building, along with a full-service inpatient imaging department. The 10-story, 178,000-squarefoot Bear Family Foundation Health Center will consist of 162 exam rooms and provide an array of multi-speciality services including, oncology, infusion, women’s health, outpatient imaging, bariatrics, surgery pre-optimization, cardiology, lab work and wound care. The new health center will also feature a conference center for public events, health education sessions and community outreach. In May of 2021, Baptist announced that a new behav-
ioral health center would also be placed on the new campus. The new facility eventually will be home to the existing behavioral health unit near the current hospital located on West Moreno Street. This freestanding unit will provide in-patient services to both adults and children and is separate from the Lakeview Center, which provides community mental health services throughout the region. The behavioral health unit at the hospital is meant to address more short-term, inpatient psychiatric care for children and adults in mental health crises. Baptist leadership has said that specific building details are still in the works, but will be unveiled in the coming months. In early April, Baptist also announced a new partnership with Catalyst Healthcare Real Estate (Catalyst), a full-service health care real estate investment firm, who will develop an 80,000-square-foot medical office building on the new Baptist campus. The Catalyst building will be located adjacent to the new 10-story Baptist Hospital building and the Bear Family Foundation Health Center. Baptist Hospital CEO, Mark Faulker explained that the location was strategically chosen to provide patients with connectivity and convenient access to all of the services to be offered on the new 57-acre campus. Baptist Hospital administrator and senior vice president of strategy and business development for Baptist Healthcare, Brett Aldridge, said that the new Catalyst medical office building will better assist Baptist in its goal to advance health care access, patient experience and outcomes for the community. “As we continue to transform health care delivery in our community, we are very pleased with this development. The second medical office building will complete our robust presence at the Brent Lane location to further support our efforts to improve access to care and improve the overall health of the community,” Aldridge said.
Project Timeline
The new health care campus will feature a number of special amenities in addition to the medical buildings, including a town square with walking paths, outdoor classrooms, rehab areas, outdoor event space and a healing garden to provide a place for quiet reflection and serenity. The main hospital will also feature its own cafe and coffee shop with both indoor and outdoor seating, along with a retail pharmacy and restaurant space, which has not yet been determined. Faulkner said that the scale and design of the campus will provide significant opportunities for growth in the future. “We are born out of this community and for this community, and as the needs of the community change, so will we,” Faulker said. Faulkner also explained that the hospital building was designed in a way that the bed space is flexible in order to adapt to different needs and patient types, and that planners included as many details as possible to create a healing environment with optimal functionality for patients, hospital staff and physicians. “Our team members, physicians and providers live out our organizational values every day in service to our patients and their families. They know how the work environment can make it easy for them to best deliver that care,” Faulkner explained. “So, we sought their input from the beginning in order to build a facility that meets the needs of our team members and provides the comfort and ease our patients and their families require for healing.” With more than 800 workers on site each day, the new campus has also served a major contributor to our local workforce and economy. Since breaking ground on the new campus in January of 2021, a total of $8.9 million has been paid in construction wages. To date, a total of 1,041,240 man hours have been spent working on the project with approximately 40 percent of the project workforce team being local or minority. “The new campus will bring modern, accessible health care to our region and it fuels local economic growth through job creation. Brasfield & Gorrie, who are our project contractors, share our dedicated focus on creating opportunities for local and minority contractors to engage in the project, infusing wages and experience back into our community,” Faulkner explained. The Haas Center at the University of West Florida conducted an
economic impact study, using an Implan analysis for the construction of a new health care structure and based on the center’s research, the construction project is expected to create 4,261 construction jobs with nearly $201 million in direct construction labor wages. Due to an increase in the demand for goods and services from the construction’s supply chain, the project is estimated to create an additional 735 indirect jobs, nearly $34 million in wages and $121.3 million in regional and revenue sales. Construction expenditures help to support not only direct jobs in the construction sector, but also general additional jobs for the community. The study also indicated that the project is expected to create an additional 956 jobs, $40.1 million in additional income to the region and contribute more than $128 million to the regional economic activity. As construction continues on the site of the new health care campus, many are wondering about the plans for the old campus property on E Street. Baptist Health Care officials reported that a finalized plan for the old campus has yet to be publicized, but said that the plans would be made public when a final decision is reached within the coming months. However, during a weekly press conference, Pensacola Mayor Grover Robinson said that using the space for affordable housing is an idea that’s being looked at. “We began gathering input on the future of the E Street campus the day after we made our announcement about the new campus in June of 2019 and we have engaged in numerous discussions with community members, stakeholders and neighborhood residents to understand their thoughts about the best use for these 51 acres for after we move and we have taken the results of those discussions to a special committee of our Board of Directors to develop an approach for the future of this campus that balances Baptist’s needs, the realities of the real estate market and community priorities,” Faulkner explained. “We are working to build partnerships with others who share our vision for this transformational redevelopment opportunity and expect to be able to share more details very soon.” For more on Baptist Health Care and updates on the new campus transformation, visit eBaptistHealthCare.org. •
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