Lee Health gives tour of its $140 million Estero medical campus

Large silver air ducts snaked through hallways. Caged light bulbs hung by silver beams above the concrete and cardboard-covered floors throughout the main building of Lee Health - Coconut Point Friday afternoon.

While evidence of continuing construction was visible both in and outside of the sprawling 163,000-square-foot facility, signs for areas such as "Cardiac Diagnostics" and "Triage Rooms" began to paint a picture how the $140 million health and wellness village will look when it opens later this year in Estero

“We really want this to be part of the wellness of the community,” said Dave Kistel, Lee Health vice president of facilities and support services. “We want people to come here every day and enjoy this facility.”

During a Friday afternoon media tour of the 33-acre site, Lee Health officials brought community leaders and reporters inside the main building of the outpatient medical complex, which has been under construction since the ceremonial groundbreaking last May.

More: Lee Health celebrates readiness to buildmedical village in Estero

Visitors will access the facility through the towering main entrance facing Via Coconut Point.

Inside the public front of the building, visitors can make use of the programs and spaces within a few steps of the entrance. 

“It’s all going to be very close,” Kistel said. “The idea was to minimize the number of footsteps a person had to take to get to places.”

The interior also is designed to have a soothing ambiance. 

Local residents can enjoy what Kistel said would be a "quiet, a very calm feeling" when they walk through the main entrance. The public lobby will have a spiral staircase, artwork along corridor walls and music would play from a grand piano that the healthcare system hopes to acquire.

Services will be state-of-the-art, said Kistel. The medical building's first floor is planned to offer cardiac rehabilitation, imaging services, breast health facilities, a central laboratory, a pharmacy and rehabilitation therapy.

More: Lee Health buys land to expand Estero presence

The emergency department, also located on the first floor, includes 16 exam rooms.

Nine observation rooms are located next to the emergency room, where medical staff, can keep patients who need additional care for up to 24 hours. The site was not approved for a hospital.

“Those are going to be important to take care of the community,” said Alex Greenwood, vice president of Lee Health - Coconut Point. “Obviously without hospital beds here, those nine beds offer a lot of flexibility. We plan to optimize those beds.”

Lee Health said it could not provide an estimate of how much speedier south Lee County response times would be in the event of emergencies once the ER opens in Estero. But Kistel said the facility's location is expected to help patients get to medical care faster.

"Travel distance to go to another emergency room and now to go here — that time has been greatly diminished," he said.

Lee Health’s Healthy Life Center in Coconut Point mall will transition to the first floor of the medical complex.

The center is expected to provide lectures, training and cooking demonstrations for local residents in the new location, Kistel said.

“It’s really a community resource,” he said.

The second floor of the medical building will feature outpatient surgery, operating rooms, 50 Lee Physician Group offices and a pathology lab.

Lee Health has planned the Estero medical complex with a future on-site hospital in mind. The building under construction now has spaces reserved in its design that can be renovated to link it to the hospital, which would be built right next door.

More: Lee Health board votes to seek new hospital license in Estero

“This space here is not only supporting this building today, but we’ve created connectors into the hospital tower, so this space is being built for today’s usage, but also for tomorrow’s usage,” Kistel said.

Last month, Lee Health submitted a letter to state regulators seeking approval to build a 160-bed hospital at the Coconut Point site.

The healthcare system received approval in February from its publicly elected board of directors to submit the hospital application to the state.

This is Lee Health’s second try to bring a hospital to south Lee County. State regulators rejected Lee Health’s plans for an 80-bed hospital in 2013 after NCH Healthcare System, based in Collier County, opposed it.

Construction of Lee Health - Coconut Point is expected to finish in late September or early October, Kistel said.

After that, Lee Health staff will move into the facility to train and bring technology, equipment and furnishings needed to prepare for the opening in December.

In preparation, Greenwood said he has started hiring staff members who would work in the medical building. Greenwood said he expects to hire most of the staff in June and July.

Lee Health would have brought on board more than 200 new employees by the time the Coconut Point medical campus opens, Greenwood said.

“We’re looking for like-minded people that are here for the right reasons, to care for the community, to have that partnership with the community, to be part of the community,” Greenwood said.

The services offered at Lee Health - Coconut Point will be a great asset for Estero and Southwest Florida, said Village Mayor Jim Boesch.

“I’m excited that the public is going to be welcomed here,” Boesch said.

Lee Health CEO Larry Antonucci said the Coconut Point facility will have an impact on the wellness of south Lee County residents.

“It’s an enormous facility, and it’s going to be teeming with people in just a few months,” he said.
 

Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect that the main entrance faces Via Coconut Point.