ShorePoint Health Venice Hospital closes; officials rebuff lease proposal from SMH

VENICE – ShorePoint Health Venice Hospital closed its doors at noon Thursday – ending a 71-year run for the healthcare facility on the island.

Officials with ShorePoint Health, which is owned by Franklin, Tennessee-based Community Health Systems Inc., blamed the closure on the opening of the Venice campus of Sarasota Memorial Hospital in November.

CHS refused several attempts by Sarasota Memorial Health Care System to lease all or part of the facility, which sought to maintain easy access to hospital services on the island.

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A ShorePoint Health spokesman said via email Wednesday that no formal proposal was made.

“No other healthcare provider has presented a formal proposal to provide any kind of ongoing healthcare services in the current hospital location,” spokesman Rolando Irizarry wrote.

Sarasota Memorial Health Care System President & CEO David Verinder said the hospital tried on three separate occasions to open negotiations.

The day SMH learned of the plans to close ShorePoint Venice, two of the hospital's financial consultants – who also do business with CHS – reached out about the companies entering into negotiations.

“Basically they were both told ‘We were not interested in having any conversations with SMH,’” Verinder said. “Then I’d say a couple days later, like two days later, Craig Conti reaches out to me and says he’d like to have a meeting.”

Conti is a vice president and senior acquisitions and development officer for CHS, and a conference call was scheduled for Aug. 31, with Verinder, SMH Chief Legal Officer Carol Ann Kalish, and Chief  Financial Officer Jeff Limbocker on the line with Conti.

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Verinder explained that SMH – which tried to buy the hospital from CHS in 2015 at a cost between $80 million and $85 million – was interested in leasing the emergency room or the entire facility in an effort to maintain services on the island.

Conti said that CHS had no interest since he was confident the property would sell quickly.

Verinder said while that may happen, it could take a couple of years for the buyer to follow due diligence, ranging from soil samples to zoning changes. The lease he envisioned could have terminated with the sale of the building.

Sarasota Memorial Hospital Venice Campus President Sharon Roush sent Conti a follow-up email on Sept. 8 noting that after ShorePoint closed its ER on Aug. 29, the hospital had seen a surge in admissions and ER visits.

“We are a 110-bed facility and not designed to accommodate the patients needing care in the community without Shore Point here,” she wrote and again asked about a possible lease of medical space.

The Sarasota Memorial Hospital Venice campus opened in November 2021 as a 110-bed facility. Once the ShorePoint closure was announced, extra space was converted to create more treatment and triage rooms in the emergency care center, Sarasota Memorial spokeswoman Kim Savage said in an email.

Expansion efforts will add 68 new private patient suites to the hospital, which is located at the intersection of Laurel and Pinebrook roads by early 2024.

That should be followed soon after by an expansion of the emergency department and a surgical suite.

Dueling hospitals

The facility opened on Dec. 3, 1951, as South Sarasota Memorial Hospital and was renamed Venice Memorial Hospital in February 1952. The current 67-year-old facility opened in 1955.

Plumbing issues led to raw sewage leaks and other issues at the hospital in 2015-16, which contributed to an erosion of public confidence in the hospital.

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Both CHS and Sarasota Memorial received final approval on certificates of need to build new hospitals in Venice in July 2018.

Sarasota Memorial broke ground in April 2019, while CHS never got farther than receiving approval of the zoning required to build a 210-bed campus on East Venice Avenue.

Earl Midlam, a former Venice City Council member who worked for 27 years as an orthopedic technician at the Venice hospital, is worried about the impact on the community.

“This is scary, what’s going to happen in season,” Midlam said. “Sarasota Memorial is already full – the emergency rooms – and we’re not in the season.”

Preparing for change

After news broke of the ShorePoint Venice closure, the Chamber opened its offices to job fairs conducted by HCA Healthcare hospitals, and Sarasota Memorial organized a job fair at Hotel Venezia.

Savage said in an email that the hospital has been aggressively hiring healthcare workers – including more than 90 from ShorePoint – since the closure was announced.

ShorePoint Health is still offering out-patient surgeries, wound care, and imaging services at its ShorePoint Health Park on Jacaranda Boulevard, and ShorePoint Health medical offices are still open.

The company has also worked with staff to find placement at its hospitals in Port Charlotte and Punta Gorda. Both hospitals are roughly 40 minutes away from the Venice hospital campus.

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Emergency services personnel has been talking with officials from both hospitals, as it transitioned back to having only one hospital in the city.

“Before SMH Venice came about, we only had one hospital so essentially our operations remain the same,” Venice Fire Chief Frank Giddens said. “Really nothing has changed on our end.”

In addition to steps taken to increase service capacity at the SMH Venice campus, Sarasota Memorial has also expanded hours and services at its network of imaging and outpatient centers, including outpatient rehabilitation services at Sarasota Memorial Health Care Center at Blackburn Point.

“The truth is, we’re going to do whatever it takes to take care of the people in the community,” Verinder said. “We have a history of that – a 100-year history of doing that  – and we’re not going to let the community suffer because of somebody else’s poor actions.”

Earle Kimel primarily covers south Sarasota County for the Herald-Tribune and can be reached at earle.kimel@heraldtribune.com. Support local journalism with a digital subscription to the Herald-Tribune.

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Florida hospital ShorePoint Health closes after lease proposal ignored