Florida Hospital pours foundation for Winter Garden campus

Florida Hospital officials, Winter Garden commissioners and community leaders gathered at 10 a.m. on Oct. 23 to pour an orange cement foundation for a new Florida Hospital facility. The cement is orange to honor the heritage of West Orange County.

The hospital staff will have a mission of supporting the health needs of the growing West Orange County community when the building opens, scheduled for late next year.

“This is a tremendous, exciting time and project for the West Orange community,” said Raymond Moe, project manager of the Florida Hospital Winter Garden site.

The facility will feature a state-of-the-art emergency department, a sports medicine and rehabilitation program, an outpatient surgery center, a multi-specialty physician clinic, a clinical decision unit, an outpatient lab and various imaging services, said Amanda Maggard, administrator of Florida Hospital Winter Garden and assistant vice president of West Orange development.

“We’re so excited to lay the groundwork today to be able to provide comprehensive care to Winter Garden for many years to come,” Maggard said. “We look forward to having a bigger presence in the West Orange community as a trusted healthcare partner, bringing greater access to care close to home.”

The 97,415-square-foot, three-story hospital is under construction across from the Chick-fil-A of the Winter Garden Village at Fowler Groves. Construction crews will use more than 850 truckloads of concrete to create Florida Hospital Winter Garden, Maggard said. Completion of all of the concrete work will take roughly 49,000 man-hours, which is the equivalent of 40 workers onsite for seven months or one worker for 23.5 years, she said.

“Florida Hospital has had a history here in the community for over 100 years of bringing comprehensive, full-person healthcare to Central Florida,” Maggard said. “We are thrilled to be laying the foundation for Florida Hospital Winter Garden, a world-class healthcare facility for the Winter Garden community.”

Florida Hospital Winter Garden is the ninth Florida Hospital in Central Florida and is scheduled to open in winter 2015.