UF Health spokesman Dan Leveton confirmed that the medical system intends to build its first free-standing emergency department in Northwest Jacksonville along Dunn Avenue.
He did not have information about the specific address or details about a second location that is in review along Lane Avenue in West Jacksonville.
Leveton said May 21 that the Dunn Avenue project is the one moving forward in the area.
“Also there is no specific address yet. It’s being built there because that is a growing part of the community and our goal is to serve those residents,” he said.
Completion is expected by late 2022.
Leveton said permits are being submitted and bids are going out.
Concurrency plans filed with the city show a 12,430-square-foot free-standing emergency clinic on 1.52 acres at 6765 Dunn Ave., although UF Health is not identified.
The site is in the Dunn Village shopping center at Dunn Avenue and New Kings Road/U.S. 1 in the Dinsmore area
Miami-based Saglo Development Corp. owns Dunn Village, which is anchored by a Rowe’s IGA Supermarket.
While Leveton did not confirm a second location in West Jacksonville, the city is reviewing a building-permit application for UF Health to develop an 11,716-square-foot center on almost 1.2 acres at 888 Lane S. at northwest Lane Avenue and Grace Lane.
No contractor is listed for the estimated $6 million project. Salim Kassab is the property owner of the site, a former Ameris Bank branch built in 2008.
The architect is e4h Environments for Health Architecture LLC of Fort Worth, Texas.
The Lane Avenue permit application describes the project as a ground-up free-standing emergency department to provide 24-hour emergency medical treatment and urgent care.
It will be an outpatient department of UF Health Jacksonville, whose main area campus is in the Springfield area.
It will contain 10 exam rooms and trauma/resuscitation, CT scan and X-ray rooms as well as support, mechanical, administrative and public areas.
In February 2020, UF Health Jacksonville CEO Leon Haley said the medical center could add a free-standing emergency room in the market.
Haley said then that the system is “definitely leaning toward doing some,” but plans were not finalized.
UF Health Jacksonville in Springfield is the largest UF campus outside of Gainesville.
UF Health Jacksonville comprises the academic health center, UF Health North in North Jacksonville, the UF Health Science Center and the UF Health Jacksonville Physicians Inc. network of primary and specialty care centers in Northeast Florida and Southeast Georgia.
It opened the UF Health Wildlight medical office complex in Yulee in Nassau County.
When UF Health Jacksonville North began building at Max Leggett Parkway, it led with a stand-alone emergency department in 2015, which was converted into a hospital emergency room when the patient tower was constructed in 2017.
UF Health operates two free-standing ERs in Gainesville and one in The Villages.
Haley said UF Health Jacksonville’s free-standing ER would follow a similar model.