Construction on $90 million expansion of SMH Venice Emergency Department to begin
VENICE – Sarasota Memorial Health Care System will soon start construction work on a $90 million expansion of the Emergency Department and surgical facilities at the hospital’s Venice campus at the intersection of Laurel and Pinebrook roads.
Plans call for increasing the size of the Emergency Department from 28 to 62 beds and the number of surgical suites from six to eight with enough shell space to add another eight surgical suites in the future.
Sarasota Memorial Hospital’s Venice campus was near capacity shortly after it opened in November 2021.
The Sarasota County Public Hospital Board had approved adding a third bed tower to the campus prior to that. The 102-bed tower is scheduled to open in phases starting in April 2024 and should be completely open by the end of that year, increasing the campus from 110 to 212 beds.
The need for hospital beds in south Sarasota County abruptly grew after Community Health Systems Inc. chose to close its 312-bed Shore Point Venice Hospital on the island of Venice in September 2022.
The private company – which sold off the former hospital site and other properties on the island of Venice for $10.1 million – refused overtures from SMH to lease all or part of the facility.
The expansion of the SMH-Venice emergency department is scheduled to finish by December 2024.
As part of the 30,000-square-foot expansion workers must first demolish an exterior wall. Work on the project will be done in phases. The initial demolition and construction is expected to last four months.
No changes were needed for the walk-in or ambulance entrances, or the helicopter landing pad, all of which are far enough away from the construction zone.
“It is an active construction site, so some noise from heavy equipment and power tools is inevitable,” SMH-Venice Campus President Sharon Roush said in a new release. “But we are working closely with our contractors and implementing a number of soundproofing measures to help block noise from entering the building.”
In addition to expansion of the Venice campus, Sarasota Memorial officials are also hoping to locate a free-standing emergency department on the island of Venice.
Overall south Sarasota County expansion plans call for construction of a new acute-care hospital in North Port at the Sumter Boulevard interchange with Interstate 75 and a yet-to-be designated medical campus in Wellen Park.
The most recent expansion effort at the Sarasota campus is a $75 million research and medical education facility on Arlington Road.
That facility is anticipated to open in 2025.
The hospital will mark its 100th year of operation on Nov. 2, 2025.
This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: SMH to begin expansion of Venice campus emergency department
