50,000-square-foot medical building planned for Lakewood Ranch

Yet another significant medical project is headed to rapidly growing East Manatee.

Optimal Outcomes of St. Petersburg is planning a 50,000-square-foot medical office building on Lakewood Ranch’s CORE Campus — Collaboration Opportunities for Research and Exploration.

The company builds community-based outpatient centers, medical office buildings and comprehensive cancer centers.

The facility at Lakewood Ranch would be used for leased doctor’s offices, according to documents filed with Manatee County government.

The Optimal Outcomes facility would be located on five acres east of Lakewood Ranch Boulevard off a newly opened four-lane road, Silver Falls Run, that connects to Rangeland Parkway.

Other Optimal Outcomes projects include Florida Cancer Specialists & Research Institute’s corporate office in Fort Myers; Tradition HealthParks One and Two, in Port St. Lucie; Brandon Medical Pavilion; Tampa Orthopaedic Center; Tampa Cancer Center; and Bayboro 625 Sixth, a 120,000-square-foot medical office building on the campus of Bayfront Medical Center in St. Petersburg, among others.

“We are strategic partners who identify facility needs with health systems and develop community and campus-based solutions that improve operational efficiencies, provider outcomes and patient selection. Our projects are progressive and designed to endure,” Optimal Outcomes says on its website.

Increasingly, East Manatee has become a magnet for health care providers. Joining Lakewood Ranch Medical Center in East Manatee are Sarasota Memorial Hospital with its Health Care Center at Heritage Harbour and Doctors Hospital of Sarasota, which in March plans to opens a 10,000-square-foot emergency room near Lakewood Ranch.

The demand for health care providers continues to grow as building in East Manatee continues and new communities open, Jim Curran, dean of the College of Business at USF Sarasota-Manatee, said.

“The demand for this kind of service, particularly for baby boomers and snowbirds will continue to grow,” Curran said. “One advantage is the access to I-75 to draw from the north and the south.”

Optimal Outcomes’ plans to move into Manatee County are a reflection of the area’s growth, said Mike Snipes, a Lakewood Ranch resident who is an economics instructor at USF Sarasota-Manatee.

“I’m seeing all the changes occurring, and it’s really noticeable from last year to this year,” Snipes said.

The CORE campus continues to add bulk. Mercedes Medical, a national laboratory distribution company, recently held a groundbreaking for its 54,667-square-foot building, joining other health care providers already operating there, including Intercoastal Medical Group and The Sheridan at Lakewood Ranch, an assisted living and memory care facility.

Schroeder-Manatee Ranch, developer of Lakewood Ranch, and owner of the property where Optimal Outcomes plans to build, is heading efforts to secure county approvals for the project.

Optimal Outcomes did not respond to several requests for comments on the project.

For more information on Optimal Outcomes, visit optimal-outcomes.com.

This story was originally published February 6, 2018 at 1:51 PM with the headline "50,000-square-foot medical building planned for Lakewood Ranch."