JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Mayo Clinic will invest about $97 million in two new major construction projects scheduled to begin this summer in Jacksonville, officials announced this week.
The projects will add two floors and 90 beds to its hospital and construct an off-site primary care center near the intersection of Interstate 295 and Gate Parkway.
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The expansion projects will add about 400 new jobs at Mayo and 250 construction jobs, says William Rupp M.D., chief executive officer of Mayo Clinic in Florida.
Mayo Clinic currently has about 4,900 employees and generates $1.6 billion annually to the northeast Florida economy.
"Our hospital has been operating at or near capacity almost since it first opened four years ago," Dr. Rupp says. "The additional beds and other improvements to the hospital will help us continue to offer the highest quality of care and meet the needs of our patients."
This marks the first expansion of the Mayo Clinic hospital since it opened in April 2008. Currently, the hospital has 214 beds. After the $80 million expansion, the hospital will have 304 private rooms and eight floors.
The two-story, 40,000-square-foot primary care center will be designed to support 20 physicians and providers and offer X-ray, mammography, ultrasound and laboratory services. The high-performance and environmentally friendly building design will allow Mayo to seek LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification when construction is completed.
When the $16.7 million center opens in summer 2013, Mayo Clinic will have three freestanding primary care centers in northeast Florida in addition to the primary care practice on the main campus on San Pablo Road. The others are in Jacksonville Beach and St. Augustine.
"The expansion places a greater emphasis on primary care and the concept of a patient-centered medical home," Rupp says. "The medical home concept emphasizes coordination, whole-person orientation and partnerships between patients and their care providers."
In addition to the upcoming construction projects, Mayo Clinic has just added two new floors to an office building on the San Pablo campus to expand Mayo Medical Laboratories and the simulation center, which helps train physicians and other medical staff. Mayo Clinic recently opened a 10,000-square-foot freestanding sleep disorders center, as well as the Gabriel House of Care, a 30-room, extended-stay patient housing facility for visiting transplant and cancer patients and their families.
With these newly announced expansion projects, Mayo has invested more than $132 million in capital improvements over the past two years.