PLANT CITY – The event was pretty easy to describe for Charles and Patricia Bridges.
“It was nice. It’s a big improvement – it’s very state-of-the-art,” Charles Bridges said.
The Bridgeses of Plant City were just two of more than 1,500 visitors Sunday to the new South Florida Baptist Hospital preview event, a chance for guests and hospital staff to gather and gawk at the 50-acre medical campus, 3202 N. Park Road, off Interstate 4 exit 22.
The new $326 million hospital, part of the BayCare hospital network, will replace the 70-year-old facility on Alexander Street, which opened in 1953. Ground was broken on the new SFBH medical center in October 2021. The hospital is tentatively scheduled to open by mid-May.
By the time the lobby doors were opened at 11 a.m., a queue of more than 100 people were in place, ready for “self-guided tours” of the 146-private room hospital. More than 800 hospital employees and 250 physicians will work at the new facility.
At the preview, SFBH administrators and healthcare workers lined the halls of the 424,000-square-foot facility – including an 85,000-square-foot medical arts building – greeting guests as they walked by and answering questions.