$1 million pledge made by two residents to build medical center near Golden Gate

The Healthcare Network of Southwest Florida is receiving two gifts totaling $1.3 million to help build a new medical complex at the edge of Golden Gate for underserved residents.

Moorings Park residents Alice and Karl Sheffield have made a $1 million pledge toward the capital campaign of the three-story, 50,000 square foot building that will be built near Collier and Green boulevards. The complex will be called the Nichols Community Health Center after a lead gift from Naples resident Jerry Nichols.

The $1 million from the Sheffields will fulfill a mission of providing medical care to employees of Moorings Park, many of whom live in Golden Gate. Moorings Park is an upscale continuing care retirement community in Naples.

The second gift of $300,000 is from the Moorings Park Foundation to address specialized senior care needs in the community.

“It’s a big boost,” Mike Ellis, president and chief executive officer of the nonprofit Healthcare Network said of the two gifts. “It really puts a focus on adult care and the senior center.”

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Permitting is underway and the plan is to start construction in December with the goal to open in early 2020, Ellis said. The cost is $15 million to build and equip. Healthcare Network is a little more than halfway toward raising the total cost, he said.

The Nichols Center will offer full primary and dental care services for adults and children, women’s and senior care, and behavioral health, as well as have a pharmacy and an X-ray service. The target population is the 50,000 residents in the surrounding Golden Gate and Golden Gate Estates area, which includes 12,000 children, Ellis said.

The first floor of the building will be named The Alice and Karl Sheffield Adult Services Center, which will include 14 exam rooms, four physician offices, an X-ray unit and waiting room.

“We met them about a year ago,” Ellis said of the donors.

About six months prior to the opening of the new center, Healthcare Network will open a temporary practice at the main campus of Moorings Park so employees can access medical care there, Ellis said. The temporary center will close when the new Golden Gate complex is ready for patients.

The $300,000 gift from the Moorings Park Foundation will be used for a senior center to provide physicians and nursing space for geriatric care. The Moorings Park Senior Center will be located inside the Sheffield Center.

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Healthcare Network was founded in 1977 in Immokalee to provide medical care to underserved residents. It is the only federally qualified health center in Collier.

Healthcare Network currently has 21 locations in Collier, including two mobile care units and 420 employees. Total annual operating costs last year were $54 million. It handled more than 204,000 patient visits in 2017.