Major health care conglomerates are making big investments in Pasco

In 2024, Pasco County grew in all directions. Housing developments sprung up with the goal of keeping pace with population growth (632,996 people called Pasco home in 2023, a 3.82% increase from 2022), economic development groups went on global treks to bring in new business to the region and high profile medical hub projects abound. 

Those health care projects include: the groundbreaking of Orlando Health Wiregrass Ranch Hospital; Baycare Health System’s $12 million purchase of 15.7-acres in Epperson; AdventHealth Wesley Chapel breaking ground on its expansion; and Moffitt Cancer Center’s forward motion of its 775-acre Speros project in Land O’ Lakes.

Open up

Moffitt Cancer Center is one of the biggest, and most well-known projects. Moffitt announced plans for its massive Speros campus in 2022, a multi-decade project with a $1.6 billion price tag for the first phase. 

Of course, If you’re going to build cities, you have to build roads and that’s where John Allgeier, vice president of development, construction and operations for Speros, comes in. He is tasked with, among other things, the infrastructure of the project.

In 2025, roads Wilton Way and Wilma Way will be completed. “That's what really opens the campus up, so that partners and other people can start to come to work with us to cure cancer,” Allgeier says.

Earlier this fall, the first building was topped off — a proton therapy unit. “The walls of the proton building are nine feet wide of concrete. It's a radiation beam, so it can't go anywhere. So when we say top that off, it was a lot of concrete [and] it was exciting to get it done," Allgeier says.

As for the ProteusONE proton beam, that will also be arriving in spring 2025. It’ll be arriving by ship from Belgium, and will take roughly a year to unload and calibrate so it's ready for use. 

With all the buzz around campus with vendors, partners and workers building toward the future, Allgeier is excited for the next wave of folks to start arriving on campus. “What I'm looking forward to is the buildings opening up and actually starting to see patients come, our researchers come, and people being here.”

'Take shape' 

AdventHealth Wesley Chapel, meanwhile, established a Pasco presence back in 2012. The organization will be stepping into 2025 with a new CEO, Ryan Quattlebaum, and a $79.4 million expansion project. 

Courtesy image

Over the summer, construction began on spaces both renovated and newly added — a new three-story north wing and a two-story south courtyard infill, adding 80,373 square feet of new space and renovating 8,837 square feet of existing space, according to a release from the hospital.

“A milestone right now is that we've poured the fifth floor on our three-story expansion on our north tower and all the structural steel is in place on our two-story infill in our south courtyard,” AdventHealth Wesley Chapel CFO Jonathan Fisher says. “We're watching it really take shape, and it's really exciting to watch.”

Once complete, the new space will allow for 72 inpatient beds, two operating rooms, two endoscopy suites, one hybrid operating room and 20 pre-op and post-op beds. 

“We're a beautiful facility, and we have high quality care, but the difference that is Wesley Chapel, the great culture that we have here is it's truly the people. It's not the building,” Fisher says, “And I just can't say enough about what an awesome team that we have here that care about each other and care even more about the patients that they're taking care of, and that we're blessed to have their trust to take care of.”