Tampa General Hospital to expand city's medical district with new psychiatric care facility

TAMPA — Tampa General Hospital will build a new four-story facility on Kennedy Boulevard near downtown.

The 83,000-square-foot TGH Behavioral Health Hospital will be built next to a rehabilitative hospital under construction between Oregon and Willow Avenues.

A spokesperson declined to provide the cost of the project.

The new hospital will include 96 inpatient beds but could grow to 120 beds. Tampa General Hospital will lead the management of the hospital and USF Health's Department of Psychiatry will provide the care. The hospital is expected to break ground in later this year or early next year 2023 and open in late 2024.

When it does open, Tampa General says in a statement that the new hospital will serve as a Central Receiving Facility.

This means it will operate “as the first point of evaluation and care, providing initial emergent evaluations for individuals in the community going through a behavioral health crisis.” Patients coming to the hospital facing mental health emergencies will be evaluated and get “intensive stabilization with an immediate assessment to determine the safest treatment plan beyond the initial crisis.”

The hospital will also serve as a training ground for students at the University of South Florida’s Morsani College of Medicine and provide on-the-job training for resident doctors. And the hospital can act as “a recruitment tool” to bring new medical residents and psychiatrists to the area, Tampa General says in the statement.