Cape Coral is one step closer to getting a second acute care hospital. The City Council on Wednesday unanimously approved an economic development incentive agreement worth up to $30.95 million with Fawcett Memorial Hospital Inc. for a new acute care hospital at 322 SW Pine Island Road, the Cape Coral Breeze reported.
What's in the package
According to the Breeze, the incentives, approved as Resolution 301-26, include:
- Job Creation Incentive Funding up to $5,250,000
- Site Development Assistance Incentive funding up to $6,000,000
- Enhanced Property Value Recapture Grant funding up to $17,900,000
- Impact fee assistance up to $1,800,000
The total comes to $30,950,000.
The debate
The item was on the council's consent agenda, but Councilmember Jennifer Nelson-Lastra pulled it for discussion. She wanted to pause it to see what happens with Amendment 3 in the general election, and she said she wasn't comfortable using tax dollars for a company in direct competition with Lee Health. Her motion got no second.
Chris Lopez of Lee Health asked the council to wait for the Amendment 3 result. He noted that the amount the city could lose in year one under Amendment 3, $31.1 million, is almost the same as the incentive package. Councilmember Laurie Lehmann moved to table the item until Nov. 19, when the new council is sworn in. That motion also failed.
Mayor John Gunter said he was the one who reached out to HCA to start talks. He said Lee Health's CEO told the city it had no desire to build a hospital in Cape Coral. "If it wasn't for this incentive program, they would have picked the other city. This is why they are here," Gunter said.
Gunter said Lee Memorial has 304 hospital beds for a city of 225,000 people. Using the Florida average of 2.48 beds per 1,000 people, he said, the city should have 558 beds. He also said it takes two years to build a hospital, and the city's population will keep growing in that time.
Councilmember Rachel Kaduk said a second hospital was a priority for every council member and pointed to the high-paying jobs it would bring. After the discussion, Nelson-Lastra changed her vote. "OK, you convinced me. We need a second hospital," she said. The resolution passed unanimously.
Lee Health responds
In a statement to the Breeze, Lee Health chief of staff Michael Nachef said the health system shares the city's goal of expanding care in Cape Coral but that its approach "did not align with the city's immediate desire for a second acute care hospital."
Nachef listed Lee Health's own investments, including expanding the emergency department and ICU at Cape Coral Hospital, adding an urgent care center in South Cape Coral, and building a more than 100,000-square-foot facility on Veterans Parkway. He said Lee Health owns land in Cape Coral and has more growth plans.
"Our opposition to the proposed tax abatement has never been about opposing another hospital," Nachef said. He argued the question is whether taxpayers should give up $31 million to incentivize "a national, for-profit hospital that was already planned for the site."
Why it matters for contractors
Hospitals are among the most complex and valuable building projects a community can land. An acute care hospital means heavy MEP scopes, medical gas, specialized HVAC and infection-control work, imaging and surgical suites, backup power and a long list of code inspections. The $6 million in site development assistance and $1.8 million in impact fee help in this package point to significant sitework and utility costs on the Pine Island Road property.
The Breeze report did not include a construction start date, a general contractor or a project cost. But the mayor's estimate of two years to build gives a sense of the job's length. Lee Health's 100,000-square-foot Veterans Parkway facility adds to the healthcare construction already underway in the city.
For Southwest Florida's commercial contractors, healthcare specialists and subs, Cape Coral is shaping up as a busy healthcare market. Watch for permit filings and bid announcements on the Fawcett Memorial project, and keep an eye on how Amendment 3 plays out in November, since it was raised during the debate as a possible hit to city revenue.