AdventHealth Winter Garden unveils $145 million expansion

AdventHealth Winter Garden has announced its plans for a $145 million expansion to the hospital in West Orange County.

The 105,000-square-foot extension will add three floors to the hospital’s patient tower and bring additional women’s services needed to address the increasing demand for complex care within the community.

The plans include the addition of 40 new progressive care unit beds, obstetrics and gynecology to the hospital at 2000 Fowler Grove Blvd.

One floor will be dedicated to labor and delivery. This area will include nine labor, delivery and recovery beds; 10 postpartum beds; two C-section operating rooms; and future space for a level two Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. 

The tower’s expansion also will add space for more operating rooms and a shell floor with capacity for 40 beds.

According to AdventHealth, the addition will add more than 100 jobs to the local community. 

“Winter Garden continues to grow, and we are excited to provide additional health care services to meet the fast-growing needs of the community,” AdventHealth Winter Garden CEO Kari Vargas said. “In addition to expanding our patient tower, we are growing critical services to join our robust network of connected care that we’re providing to this community. We want to make it easy for our consumers to receive world-class health care in a setting that is close to home.”

Photo courtesy of AdventHealth Winter Garden

GOING VERTICAL 

Vargas has deep and personal connections to the community, with more than 40 years living in West Orange. Working and living in the area, she has had the opportunity to watch Winter Garden change and grow.

“Florida is the fastest-growing state in the nation … West Orange and South Lake communities are expected to grow more than 7% over the next five years,” she said. “There’s just an influx of people moving here. It’s a growing community, and we want to grow right alongside it. So, for us, we have to make sure we are growing and making provisions for our community members for high-quality care right here close to home. We need to meet the growing demand of the community, which is why we’ve decided to add three floors. We want to be there to support that growth in a way that’s convenient, high in quality and supports whole-person care.” 

Miles Bennett, who has spent more than two years serving as chief medical officer at AdventHealth Winter Garden, also has seen firsthand the community change and grow.

“I was in the emergency room when we opened here, and when we opened, I was surprised at how many visits we got as just a freestanding ER,” he said. “I was expecting maybe 30 or 40 patients a day, but we rapidly got up to 100. The frustrating thing was that any time someone came here (who) needed more advanced health care, they would get sent outside their community. What I’ve seen over time is that people in Winter Garden want to stay in Winter Garden, and I don’t blame them. We have had to pivot to meet that need, and that’s why it’s been so important for us to grow with the community, so that we can meet their health care needs close to home in Winter Garden, where they want to stay.”

According to the Agency for Healthcare Administration, each year more than 6,000 babies are born to families in West Orange and South Lake counties, but the majority of deliveries take place outside the area. The expansion aims to help solve this problem.

“Knowing you can count on highly qualified physicians and midwives to be here whenever the baby is ready to make their appearance helps moms feel safe and supported in what could be an exciting and overwhelming time,” Ashley Hill, medical director of obstetrics and gynecology at AdventHealth in Central Florida, said. “Bringing labor and delivery services to the Winter Garden community solidifies our promise of whole-person care for our moms and babies of this growing community.”

LIFE’S PURPOSE

Bennett believes the expansion will have a tremendously positive impact on the local community.

He wants to assure people they will receive the same high quality care and services they are used to even as the hospital continues to grow. 

“With this expansion, we can take care of more patients with more resources, and offer more services and specialties,” he said. “Winter Garden and this community are going to continue to grow, and my goal and my desire is that I don’t want people to look at this as an AdventHealth hospital, I want people to look at this as Winter Garden’s hospital. I hope that we can continue to be there when people are sick and in dire need, but we can also be there to keep them healthy and see them grow their families.”

For the team at AdventHealth Winter Garden, Vargas said it’s more than just work at the hospital; it’s a true purpose, and their care extends beyond the four walls of the hospital and out into the community.

“They’re caring for their neighbors, they’re caring for their family members and they’re friends,” she said. “It’s very personal, and that adds a very special approach. This is not just about delivering exceptional clinical care; we’re going to do that every time. It’s about how we are caring for our patients like our own family.”

Construction on the new expansion is planned to start this summer and is estimated to be completed in 2026.