Cancer center creates nonprofits to oversee construction of 775-acre campus

Moffitt Cancer Center has created a pair of subsidiaries to oversee the development of the sprawling 775-acre Speros FL campus it is building in Pasco County.

The two corporations are nonprofits that will be owned by Moffitt but have separate purviews, with one in charge of land holding and the other overseeing the development of the life science, innovation and medical campus.

The Tampa cancer center has also installed a board of directors that will oversee one of the two companies, Moffitt Lifesciences Campus Management Corp. This company will be the one that manages land development including roads, infrastructure and leasing and management on the campus.

Moffitt Real Estate Holding Corp. will handle the land holding.

The newly created board of directors will include Mark Metheny, a top executive with Riverview-based Homes By WestBay who will be the vice chair. In addition to Metheny, Marty Lanahan, the regional president at First Horizon Bank, will be the chair; Ted Couch, who has led several health care, financial services and real estate boards, will be secretary and treasurer. Also sitting on the board will be Edison Liu who previously served as scientific director of the National Cancer Institute’s Division of Clinical Sciences.

All but Metheny have previously worked with Moffit in the past.

According to a Moffit spokesperson, the reason for creating two corporations was that there were two corporate needs — land holding and land development — and structurally this was "the optimal governance at this juncture."

Speros FL is being built off Ridge Road in Pasco with no less of an ambition than completely transforming the treatment of cancer. Patrick Hwu, Moffitt’s president, CEO and doctor, said earlier this year that the campus was a way for the cancer center to become "the global epicenter for personalized oncology care and leading research that will revolutionize the way we prevent, find and treat cancer.”

When complete, Speros, whose name comes from the Latin word for hope, will have 16 million square feet of lab, clinical, office and manufacturing space. About 14,000 employees will work out 140 buildings and 6 miles of new roads will be built to connect the campus.

The full build-out process could stretch out for more than a decade, but initial work began earlier this year on an early phase that will include several buildings totaling 650,000 square feet, including 300,000 square feet of research space.