LAKE NONA'S MEDICAL CITY
JOE LEWIS WILL RANK ALONGSIDE DISNEY IN LOCAL HISTORY BOOKS
What single individual had the biggest impact on modern Orlando? If you said Walt Disney, I won’t argue with you. But I would suggest that 20 years from now, a fellow named Joe Lewis will rank right alongside Uncle Walt.
If you haven’t heard of Joe Lewis, you aren’t alone. The British billionaire is the principal owner of Tavistock Group, a private investment company with interests in more than 200 firms nationwide.
Lewis keeps a low profile locally, but his involvement in Orlando will fundamentally change our community — for the better — for generations to come.
Lewis left school at 15 to help his father run Tavistock Banqueting, a London catering company. He later owned a West End nightclub called Hanover Grand, where, ironically, he gave Robert Earl his first job. Earl would later found Hard Rock Café and Planet Hollywood.
After selling his family business some 30 years ago, Lewis founded the Tavistock Group. One of its subsidiaries, Lake Nona Property Holdings, owns Lake Nona Golf & Country Club and the land on which Medical City is taking shape. (Tavistock is also the developer of Isleworth, inarguably Central Florida’s most exclusive address).
Tavistock was instrumental in laying the groundwork for Medical City through its donations of land and cash, its work with local planning and economic development organizations, and its significant investments in life-sciences companies.
If that weren’t enough, the company has bolstered its corporate citizenship with an array of philanthropic efforts. The annual Tavistock Cup golf tournament, for example, has raised millions for such recipients as the MD Anderson Cancer Center Orlando, The First Tee, Tavistock Scholars and the Orlando Minority Youth Golf Association.
This special report, produced by Florida Homebuyer Orlando is meant to update the development’s progress for local residents — and to introduce it to thousands of relocators.
Thanks in large part to Joe Lewis and his partners, it’s an exciting time to be living in Central Florida. After reading this special report, I think you’ll agree.
Randy Noles
Group Publisher
Florida Home Media LLC
BIG EAST BOOM
How Lake Nona and Medical City are reshaping Central Florida.
By Katherine Johnson
Just off S.R. 417, five minutes east of Orlando International Airport, a 650-acre parcel of land has morphed into a $2 billion medical campus, including a medical school, research laboratories and hospitals.
Three years ago Lake Nona’s Medical City, as it is colloquially known, was nothing but vast expanses of pastures and woods. Its rapid transformation into one of the nation’s leading bioscience clusters is the result of hundreds of millions of dollars in government, nonprofit and private investment.
The project has powered forward pretty much according to plan, despite a national economic collapse that stopped growth in its tracks elsewhere.
This year the University of Florida Research and Academic Center opened its doors, followed by the Nemours Children’s Hospital.
Those facilities joined the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute, the University of Central Florida College of Medicine and the Burnett Biomedical Sciences Building, which houses the MD Anderson Orlando Cancer Research Institute.
Next year, the Orlando Veteran’s Affairs Medical Center will finally be complete. Looking further ahead, UCF may expand its presence by relocating its College of Nursing and possibly starting a College of Dental Medicine. There’s even been talk of a UCF-affiliated teaching hospital on university-owned land adjacent to the medical school.
“We’re working at warp speed here,” says Dr. Deborah C. German, dean of the UCF College of Medicine. “Three and a half years ago, the architects weren’t even chosen. Now it’s fully operational.”
Boosters say the long-term impact of Medical City’s various components will surpass that of Martin Marietta in the 1950s and Walt Disney World in the 1960s and 1970s. Orlando, they say, will become as well-known for leading-edge medical treatment and research as it is for world-class attractions and resorts.
Remarkably, it all started with a high-profile failure. In 2003, then-governor Jeb Bush announced plans to use government incentives to attract large biomedical companies — and their high-paying jobs — to a state where tourism had always powered the economic engine.
The Scripps Research Institute, based near San Diego, was offered $579 million in grants to open a location in the state. Hoping to seal the deal, the Tavistock Group, a private investment firm that owns Lake Nona and much of the surrounding property, set aside about 650 acres and proposed creating a medically oriented complex encompassing retail stores and housing.
Adding to the allure was the fact that medical professionals nationwide were pre-sold on Central Florida. Since the early 1990s, the region had hosted roughly half of the medical conventions held in the United States, according to statistics from the Metro Orlando Economic Development Commission.
Plus, there was room to grow in Orlando’s relatively undeveloped southeastern quadrant. With the exception of the Lake Nona Golf and Country Club, a posh gated community boasting a Tom Fazio-designed golf course, most of the land sat empty.
In the end, however, Scripps spurned Central Florida — in part because Orlando lacked a medical school — and relocated to Jupiter, an affluent, midsized city in Palm Beach County. Nearby Florida Atlantic University launched the Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine, which now offers a dual M.D./Ph.D. degree in conjunction with the institute’s Kellogg School of Science and Technology.
The loss stung, but Orlando movers and shakers learned from the experience and began looking for another opportunity. Three years later, that opportunity came when the Burnham Institute for Medical Research — now renamed the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute after a $50 million donation from billionaire T. Denny Sanford — agreed to build a campus somewhere in Florida in exchange for a $310 million incentive package.
Concurrently, UCF won approval from the Florida Board of Governors and the Florida Legislature to build its own medical school. Tavistock, which donated 50 acres on which the school could be built as well as $12.5 million in cash, challenged the community to raise an additional $12.5 million. That $25 million was doubled via a matching grant from the state.
In all, enough money was raised to launch the school and pay tuition and living expenses — worth about $40,000 per year per student — for all 41 members of the inaugural class.
That kind of grass-roots commitment appeared to impress Sanford-Burnham, which is based in La Jolla, Calif. The institute’s $85 million, 178,000-square-foot facility, which opened in 2009, is now home to the Diabetes and Obesity Research Center and the Conrad Prebys Center for Chemical Genomics screening center.
Sanford-Burnham, which employs 160 people including 110 research scientists, is now hiring additional scientists and support staffers to focus on treatments for cancer, Alzheimer’s and other diseases. In its first year, it attracted $40 million in research grants.
“We’re attracting top-level scientists who come from well-established institutes or universities, many of which are located in metropolitan areas such as Boston or Dallas,” says Deborah Robison, the institute’s communications director.
UCF’s medical school, which also opened in 2009, is thriving as well. It enrolled 80 students in 2011, 100 students in 2012 and expects 120 in 2013. Enrollment is slated to top out at 485. As of the 2009-2010 academic year, when fewer than 1 percent of applicants were accepted, it was rated the most selective medical school in the U.S.
The adjacent Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences houses UCF’s Department of Molecular Biology and Microbiology, the Biomolecular Science Center, the Medical Laboratory Sciences Program and the Pre-Health Professions Advisement Office.
The medical school’s first phase consists of a 130,000-square-foot instructional building and a 60,000-square-foot library. The Burnett School’s facility is 113,000 square feet and serves 2,500 degree-seeking students. The two programs employ more than 500, with as many as 800 anticipated at full enrollment,
German says that the university plans to add an additional 10-15 research buildings and a College of Nursing. And she remains optimistic about resurrecting plans to bring a College of Dental Medicine to the campus.
UCF had wanted to build a new 394-student dental school as an adjunct to its medical school. But at the same time, Florida A&M University was seeking to start a dental school to train minority dentists while UF was pushing to expand its nationally ranked dentistry program in Gainesville.
When the Florida Board of Governors and the Florida Dental Association expressed opposition, UCF withdrew the plan in hopes of modifying and resubmitting it in the future. “Our donors are still with us,” says German. “The long range plan has been substantially changed, but [the dental school] remains part of our vision.”
The Medical City clustering effect further accelerated when the MD Anderson Cancer Center’s Orlando Research Institute moved from downtown Orlando to the top floor of the Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences.
“There’s a lot of room for collaboration and synergy when you have so many institutions so close to one another,” says Dr. Clarence Brown, president of the center. “It’s very exciting. Brown expects that his staff of 25, which includes 10 researchers with doctoral degrees, will work closely with neighboring facilities on cancer research.
The University of Florida, based in Gainesville, has also added its formidable resources to the Lake Nona mix. In 2010 UF broke ground on a $40 million, 100,000-square-foot Research and Academic Center in Medical City.
“Our university is very receptive to creating programs outside of Gainesville,” says UF spokesperson Joseph Kays. “We believe the players involved at Lake Nona are capable of making this a major research center, and I’m sure the folks are hopeful there’ll be many more spinoffs from the work they do.”
The first floor of UF’s multilevel facility houses its Institute on Aging — a program that studies, among other things, drug interactions in the elderly — as well as the UF College of Pharmacy, which has relocated its 200 students from Apopka to Lake Nona.
Dr. Lawrence J. Lesko, professor of Pharmaceutics and director of the Center for Pharmacometrics and Systems Pharmacology, says the center’s researchers will focus on diseases such as Alzheimer’s, looking for revolutionary treatments to help the nearly 500,000 people in Florida each year who are diagnosed with some form of dementia.
Lesko leads a team of researchers whose goal is to work with medical partners using computer models, clinical information and other methods to better understand drug interactions and toxicity on patients. The results will lead to better care for patients and closer cooperation between doctors.
“We’ll be designing chemical trials on the computer and integrating data from literature and other failed trials to help find a new drug,” Lesko says. That’s significant, he adds, because the FDA has not approved any new Alzheimer’s drug since 2002
And that’s not all. Through the UF Institute of Therapeutic Innovation, also housed in UF’s Lake Nona facility, researchers will focus on identifying new treatments for cancer, diabetes and other diseases. Noted clinical pharmacologist Dr. George Drusano and his entire staff are relocating from New York to Lake Nona specifically to study infectious diseases.
“If I was 20 years younger, you wouldn’t see me in Gainesville,” says Dr. William Millard, the College of Pharmacy’s executive associate dean. “I’d be down there. We can have the students interact with research and faculty, and develop a lot of collaborative interactions with the idea that directly across the street from us is a biotech park.”
Dr. Erin St. Onge, assistant dean and campus director/clinical associate professor, says the program currently enrolls 70 students each year, allowing 200-250 students an unprecedented opportunity to develop one-on-one relationships with medical researchers and scientists.
“The students have the ability to learn and work in an environment that’s is more professional and unlike any other campus,” says St. Onge, who’s developing collaborative projects with the VA hospital and the medical school.
Another major Medical City anchor will be the Orlando Veteran’s Affairs Medical Center, slated to open next summer, about a year behind schedule. The $665 million, 1.2-million-square-foot facility will encompass 314 beds, including 22 intensive-care beds and 40 mental-health beds.
A 60-bed domiciliary will provide assisted living and other services to economically disadvantaged veterans. In addition there’ll be a medical simulation center and a research unit focusing on diabetes and obesity.
The campus will also include an outdoor courtyard and gardens area and a veterans’ memorial, the only one of its kind in the country. With state-of-the-art facilities, administrators say they expect the hospital’s 2,000-plus employees to care for 110,000 patients a year, virtually all of them from Central Florida.
“The new facility will provide in-patient bed space with very specific care for veterans and their families,” says Jeff Birdsong, executive in charge of activations. “We’ll also develop transportation alternatives to get veterans the care they need from other Central Florida outpatient sites.”
Finally, Nemours, a major pediatric healthcare provider with a hospital in Wilmington, Del., and clinics throughout Florida (including Orlando), New Jersey and Pennsylvania, picked Lake Nona for a 95-bed, 630,000-square-foot hospital.Nemours Children’s Hospital, which opened in October, encompasses 95 beds.
The private Nemours Foundation funded the project’s entire $397 million cost. “No tax money and no philanthropic dollars paid for the brick and mortar,” says Josh Wilson, senior manager, public and community relations for Nemours Florida.
Even though Orlando has two top-ranked children’s hospitals, Nemours is designed to focus on the unmet needs in the community, says Dr. Ken Liechty, chair of surgery and surgeon-in-chief, who was recruited to the area from one of the top children’s hospitals in Mississippi.
“There’s a need in children’s care for an academic home to bring in people doing more than just practicing medicine,” says Liechty. “We’ll be bringing in people doing research and education.”
The Lake Nona facility, which is expected to employ about 800, includes healing gardens, nature trails and pet therapy areas for patients. Adjacent to the eco-friendly facility, which is expected to receive LEED certification soon, is land for a future Ronald McDonald House, a home away from home to care for sick children and their families.
Designed as a “healing environment,” the hospital offers elements that cure and comfort, from an emergency department and an ambulatory diagnostic center to patient rooms with garden views and a 16-foot, 1,500-gallon saltwater aquarium in the radiology waiting area.
Because parents of children who have endured hospital stays made design suggestions, furniture is more comfortable and rooms have day beds, a workspace for parents and more closet space.
Also at Lake Nona, Valencia College opened its seventh campus in Central Florida this fall. The first of its four buildings encompasses 18 “smart” classrooms and six science labs, including a biotech lab, as well as a bookstore and a tutoring center. At buildout, the campus will boast more than 250,000 square feet of space and will accommodate as many as 10,000 students.
The focus of the Lake Nona campus is, not surprisingly, life sciences. Students are able to earn two-year associate of science degrees designed specifically for health-care workers while working alongside researchers and scientists at other Medical City facilities.
“We have people from MD Anderson and Sanford-Burnham teaching in the classrooms and students participating in internships with our medical partners,” says Michael Bosley, executive dean of the Lake Nona campus. “We hope to have students working in their labs for hands-on experience.”
Bosley adds that Valencia’s Osceola campus will collaborate with its Lake Nona campus to offer a new associate of science degree in biotechnology beginnng in 2013. Other programs in physical and occupational therapy are also in development.
Clearly, Medical City Center has been an extraordinary success story. But it hasn’t been cheap. All of the incentives offered have exceeded a billion dollars. But so far, it appears to have been money well spent.
An economic impact study by Arduin, Laffer & Moore Econometrics in 2008 found the UCF College of Medicine, combined with a life-sciences cluster, could create 30,000 jobs with $2.8 billion in annual wages, generate $460 million in annual tax revenue and spur $7.6 billion in annual economic activity for the region by the end of 2017.
“Since 2005, there’s been $2 billion in active construction on site,” says Rob Adams, vice president of marketing for Lake Nona. “From the infrastructure we put in, to the hospitals, the research institute and medical school.”
But even more important than Medical City’s economic impact is this: The next major advances in the diagnosis and treatment of mankind’s most vexing diseases may very well originate in our own backyard. And that’s truly invaluable.
ABOUT LAKE NONA
Lake Nona is a 7,000-acre, master-planned community within the city limits of Orlando. It’s home to world-class educational and medical facilities as well as a mix of residential options, retail centers, preservation areas and a championship golf course. Lake Nona is being developed by Lake Nona Property Holdings, owned by Tavistock Group, a private investment organization with a broad portfolio of assets around the world. For more information on Lake Nona, visit learnlakenona.com.
ABOUT TRAVISTOCK GROUP
Tavistock Group is an international private investment organization founded by Joe Lewis. With investments in more than 200 companies across 15 countries, Tavistock Group’s portfolio includes everything from life sciences to sports teams to manufacturing companies. For more information on Tavistock Group, visit tavistock.com.
INTRIGUING COLLABORATIONS INCLUDE EQUESTRIAN THERAPY
One of the most intriguing collaborations involving the Medical City anchors is an effort to develop an equestrian therapy program that will benefit wounded veterans being treated at the neighboring VA Hospital.
Dr. Manette Monroe, a lifelong horse enthusiast, is leading UCF’s effort to bring the program to Lake Nona. Monroe wants to scientifically quantify the ways in which horseback riding helps vets who are physically disabled or suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.
According to Wendy Spirduso Sarubbi, coordinator of information and publication services at the UCF College of Medicine, the research will be groundbreaking.
“Veterans who are coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan with amputations and serious brain injuries from roadside bombings need this program,” says Sarubbi. “Using equestrian therapy allows vets to ride the horses to improve balance, hand/eye coordination and core strength.”
UCF is finalizing a proposal to Osceola County leaders requesting donated land on which to build a covered equestrian center for year-round training and classes. The school is seeking research grants to fund the program and hopes to eventually expand it to encompass children with autism.
RANDAL PARK IS A NATURAL OASIS
Burgeoning Medical City is spurring residential growth outside the boundaries of Lake Nona.
One of the sector’s newest master-planned communities, Randal Park, is located on Dowden Road between Narcoossee Road and the Central Florida Greeneway. The 700-acre community will eventually encompass 815 single-family and 1,400 multifamily homes.
“The neighborhoods are surrounded by natural beauty, and it’s an easy commute to work,” says community spokesperson Barbara Koenig. “Florida is about being outdoors and Randal Park is an oasis from the daily grind.”
Koenig says developers were sensitive to the surrounding environment and wanted to include as much of the lush, natural landscape in the community’s design as possible.
Consequently, Randal Park is seeking major green development certifications from such organizations as LEED-Neighborhood Development, the U.S. Green Building Council, the Florida Green Building Council and more.
More than three miles of bike paths and fitness trails surround a five-acre central park with sports fields. There are also eight smaller neighborhood parks and playgrounds throughout the community.
Randal House, the community center, features a resort pool and patio, wide lawns and an open pavilion. It will be a favorite gathering spot for birthday parties, yoga classes, book clubs or most any other reason friends and neighbors congregate.
David Weekley Homes and M/I Homes, the community’s exclusive builders, are offering homes priced from the low- to mid-$200s on 40-, 50-, 60- and 70-foot lots.
The first phase includes 106 lots and the first finished model by David Weekley opened in September. An elementary school within the community should be complete in time for the 2013-2014 school year.
SUSTAINABILITY AND TECHNOLOGY REMAIN LAKE NONA HALLMARKS
Sustainability and technology are crucial to Lake Nona’s development plan. So much so, that the White House even noticed. This summer, the community’s high-speed technology infrastructure was highlighted as an example of “forward-looking community development” at a Washington, D.C. launch event for the US Ignite Partnership.
US Ignite, a public-private partnership, promotes use of virtualized ultra-fast broadband networks and “ignites” the development of next-generation Internet applications and services. Lake Nona is one of only a few communities in the U.S. that has successfully deployed gigabit networks, providing speeds up to 100 times faster than standard cabled or DSL services.
“We believe that we’ve only scratched the surface of what can be done with a gigabit of bandwidth,” said Lake Nona Vice President Thad Seymour during ceremonies at the White House. “We were eager to join forces with the US Ignite partnership and share best practices from across the US Ignite network of communities and partners.”
During the event, Lake Nona was lauded for its creation of a “no limits” network as well as for its delivery of gigabit-to-the-home technology and healthcare IT. The network connects Medical City’s physicians to research networks, enabling them to quickly share and process data that can help accurately diagnose and treat patients and accelerate scientific advances.
In Laureate Park, a residential neighborhood adjacent to Medical City, physicians, researchers and scientists can log on at any hour — from their homes — and view high-definition video, scans and other information.
Internet technology is only one example of unmatched efficiency in the community. Lake Nona is participating in a GE program called Homes Inspired by Eco-Imagination, through which homes are pre-wired for electric vehicles and illumination is provided by LED streetlights.
In addition, each Laureate Park home is equipped with a geo-springs water heater/heat pump that cuts water and energy usage by 30 percent.
A Nucleus Energy Management System helps monitor a home’s energy consumption. “It looks like a cell phone charger that you plug into the wall,” says Rob Adams, Lake Nona’s vice president of marketing. “It talks to the meter outside. You can hook it up to a special thermostat and go on the Web and see what your house is doing.”
Every home in Laureate Park is outfitted with Energy Star appliances, lighting, smart thermostat, water filtration, geo-springs water heater/heat pump, and other appliances to reduce energy usage by 20 percent. Every home is also pre-wired for electric vehicles.
HOMES WITH HIGH IQ'S
Lake Nona attracts buyers galore to East Orange County.
By Katherine Johnson
Lake Nona Property Holdings HAS announced its strongest sales totals in more than seven years, with 300-plus homes sold through August in the community’s active neighborhoods — Laureate Park, Lake Nona Golf & Country Club, Village Walk and Water’s Edge.
This activity, coupled with an earlier Metrostudy report showing 224 new-home starts through the second quarter of 2012, confirms that Lake Nona is the most active community in the Orlando market.
“We’re definitely seeing a major uptick in activity this year,” says Rob Adams, Lake Nona’s vice president of marketing. “Lake Nona is a special place, and people continue to recognize the value of living here.”
Adams says he’s especially pleased with the early sales pace at 503-lot Laureate Park, Lake Nona’s newest neighborhood, which is located adjacent to Medical City and features streets named for Nobel Prize winners.
While Laureate Park fits the definition of a traditional neighborhood development — alley-loaded garages, front porches and community parks — the architecture is decidedly different. It’s homes are neotraditional with a contemporary flair, boasting a whimsical color palette that’s as charming as it is unexpected.
The most talked-about color example so far is what has become known as “The Big Red House,” an Ashton Woods Homes model that appears to be an homage to a picture-postcard Midwestern barn, right down to the bright hue.
“Everybody loves Big Red,” says Mike Roche, Ashton Woods’ vice president of sales and marketing, who says his company gladly agreed to paint its model an unusual color. “It’s gotten rave reviews.”
In addition to Ashton Woods, other exclusive builders in Laureate Park include David Weekley Homes, K. Hovnanian Homes and Minto Communities. All Laureate Park homes, which range in price from the $200s to the $600s, are certified green by a Masco program and are branded with GE Ecomagination. More unusual is that the entire neighborhood is wired with fiber optic cables that allow “unmatched” Internet connections 100 times faster than is typical, Adams says.
The architecture and the technology are far from Laureate Park’s only attractions. Streets curve around lush, green landscaped pathways. Jogging paths and nature trails abound. There’s a community garden where residents can grow their own herbs and vegetables as well as separate dog parks for big and little canine companions.
About 25 percent of Laureate Park’s buyers work in one of the Medical City facilities, says Adams, which means they can easily walk or ride bicycles to work.
Consequently, the neighborhood’s builders are busy. Ashton Woods is debuting four new floorplans with gourmet kitchens and granite countertops, while Minto Communities expects to finish construction on its model homes by late November, says Mike Belmont, company president.
Construction is also under way on a new amenity center located across from Laureate Park. Two pools, a fitness center, retail shops and an exclusive destination restaurant created by the owners of Luma and Prato in Winter Park are planned for the site.
As residential growth picks up, so does retail growth. Ground will be broken this fall on the Lake Nona Town Center, which will eventually include everything from major department stores to trendy fashion boutiques as well as movie theaters, restaurants and a two hotels.
Things are also hopping at Lake Nona Village, which features a mix of retail and office condominiums. The complex encompasses a wine cafe and a frozen yogurt shop with a Panera Bread outlet on the way. And Lake Nona Plaza, with 25,000 square feet of retail space anchored by a Publix Supermarket, is expected to be complete by the end of the year.
LIVING IN LAKE NONA
• Laureate Park. Featuring homes with modern transitional architectural styles and an abundance of intelligent, forward-thinking components. Located near Medical City, Laureate Park offers homes by Ashton Woods Homes, David Weekley Homes, K. Hovnanian Homes and Minto Communities. Six showcase homes are open seven days a week.
• Waters Edge. Gated community within NorthLake Park offering single-family homes and townhomes on Lake Nona. Amenities include a lakefront park, boat dock and boat storage areas. Builders are Park Square Homes and Ryland Homes.
• Lake Nona Golf and Country Club. Private sanctuary of luxurious custom homes surrounded by an array of world-class amenities, including a Tom Fazio-designed championship golf course with a clubhouse and lodge. Home to numerous business executives and professional athletes.
• NorthLake Park. Neotraditional community offering single-family and multifamily homes, as well as apartments. Amenities include an outdoor Olympic pool, soccer fields, basketball and tennis courts and a neighborhood dog park. An A-rated elementary school with an adjoining YMCA is on site.
•VillageWalk. Resort-style neighborhood where streets are connected by bridges that form a walkway to the Town Center. Amenities include six miles of lighted walking trails, two swimming pools, tennis and basketball courts and a fitness center.
TIMELINE
Over the last seven years, Medical City has literally risen from the ground up. Here’s a look back at the major milestones in the project’s development.
May 2009
The University of Central Florida College of Medicine opens a 50-acre Health Sciences Campus and College of Medicine.
Cost, $166 million; size, 368,000 square feet; staff, 400
May 2009
Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute at Lake Nona opens its east coast facility.
Cost, $85 million; size, 175,000 square feet; staff, 300
October 2009
M.D. Anderson Cancer Center Orlando opens its Cancer Research Institute at UCF’s Burnett Biomedical Sciences Building.
Cost, $2.5 million; size, 30,000 square feet; staff, 25 researchers
August 2012
The University of Florida Research and Academic Center, which houses its doctoral pharmacy program and drug development center, opens its doors.
Cost, $42 million; size, 100,000 square feet; staff, 120 employees, 200 students
October 2012
Nemours Children’s Hospital opens its facility and begins accepting patients.
Cost, $397 million; size, 630,000 square feet; staff, 1,000
Late 2013
The VA Hospital is expected to finish its final phase of construction and begin accepting patients.
Cost, $665 million; size, 1.2 million square feet; staff, 2,100