Gilbane Building and Sarasota Memorial Health Care System marked a major milestone with the topping out of the Venice Campus Bed Tower expansion in Florida. Opening in 2024, the new patient tower will add 102 new private patient rooms to the Venice hospital, with dedicated surgical, cardiac and orthopedic units and expanded space for clinical and support departments.

“Gilbane is excited to celebrate the on-time topping-out milestone as construction continues to progress towards the planned opening next year,” said Cary Shippert, vice president and southeast director of Health Care and Science/Technology at Gilbane Building Company. “Utilizing lean and prefabrication initiatives, the project team continues to provide accelerated, on-time delivery of each project. Assisting our client through a phased transition process will help them open their facility quickly to meet the rising demand for health care in southwest Florida.”

Meanwhile, Sarasota Memorial is also moving forward with expanding the Venice Hospital’s Emergency Care Center and surgical division to double capacity in those areas.

“These are critical expansions that will improve access and care for the entire region,” said Sarasota Memorial CEO David Verinder. “The new tower will nearly double the Venice hospital’s capacity to more than 200 beds and help meet current and future needs in the community.”

Master-planned and designed by Flad Architects, the 65-acre Laurel Road campus is designed for future growth, which includes doubling in size to 400 private inpatient suites, 16 surgical suites and a 50-bed ER, without compromising current operations. The SMH Venice project has won numerous design awards and a recent Construction Award of Merit for “Best Projects” from W&C’s sister publication ENR magazine.