Marietta-based firm to build Lee County hospital

LEESBURG — Although many of the details surrounding Lee County’s plan to build a $50 million, 50-bed hospital on the property now occupied by Grand Island Golf Club are still unknown, it appears one of the parties involved is one of the nation’s foremost developers of medical and health care facilities.

Henry Johnson, chief strategy officer of Marietta’s Freese Johnson LLC, confirmed Friday that his company “has been engaged” to build the new hospital.

Johnson said that due to the many nuances of the project, and the fact that everything is still in the early stages, he could not share specific details about the county’s future hospital. But he was able to provide some information about Freese Johnson and its expertise in designing and building health care facilities.

“Freese Johnson focuses on health care projects nationally,” said Johnson. “We were selected based on our expertise in delivering first-class health care facilities and our experience dealing with medical facility operators.”

Johnson said the company recently had an opportunity to provide a new, 50-bed, 76,770-square-foot hospital to residents of Broomfield, Colo., that he called a “first-class building,” with “high-end design.” That building has a full-service emergency department and three operating rooms.

The Broomfield facility, which Johnson said is similar to what he envisions for Lee County, was also constructed on a mixed-use site, which allowed for the addition of various amenities around the facility, including access to bike paths.

“It was very exciting for that community,” said Johnson. “It’s the first hospital within the city of Broomfield.”

Closer to home, Freese Johnson recently built the lavish, 150,000-plus-square-foot Ty Cobb Regional Medical Center in Lavonia, which boasts 56 beds, including eight ICU beds, three labor and delivery beds, and four operating rooms.

The Ty Cobb facility also includes a full complement of medical services including CT, digital mammography, a sleep lab, MRI and rehab services.

Details about what types of amenities and technology the Lee County hospital will have are not available, but Johnson said his company is thrilled to have the opportunity to build something that will benefit area residents.

“For us (the Lee County hospital project) is really exciting,” said Johnson. “Anytime we have an opportunity to begin a new project and provide a community with better access to health care, it’s an exciting thing for us.”

The Lee County hospital project is a joint venture between several entities, including Lee County, the Development Authority of Lee County and the Lee County Parks and Recreation Authority, and will mark the first hospital to be located within the county.

It’s also expected to be the lynchpin of an overarching economic development project that will also include the development of additional acreage around the hospital meant to attract medical-related businesses such as doctors offices, drug stores and medical equipment suppliers, to name a few.

The involved parties executed a Memorandum of Understanding earlier this week, culminating with the Lee County Board of Commissioners signing off on it at its Tuesday work session, which effectively put the hospital project in motion.

Those close to the project said Grand Island Golf Club will continue to operate as an 18-hole golf course until ground is broken on the new project in early 2017. At that time, the golf course will be reduced to a nine-hole layout.

Johnson said based on experience with other projects of this size, he expects the construction of the hospital to take roughly 12 to 14 months.