Mayo Clinic in Florida, which opened 37 years ago in South Jacksonville, is adding a 210-acre North Campus to its San Pablo Road property.
That expands its 392-acre medical center property to 602 acres.
A master development plan dated Oct. 27, 2022, shows that Mayo still has land available for development at its Main Campus at 4500 San Pablo Road S., north of Butler Boulevard.
The additional land is along W.M. Davis Parkway, northwest of the Mayo Clinic Jacksonville Development of Regional Impact.
It is a development plan that adds decades to Mayo Clinic in Florida’s ability to expand.
The Davis family, founders of the Winn-Dixie Stores Inc. supermarket chain, conveyed about 400 acres for the original campus, which Mayo opened in 1986.
Duval County property records show that an entity of the Davis family conveyed the additional 210 acres to Mayo Clinic Jacksonville on Oct. 25, 2022.
The Jacksonville clinic was Mayo’s first facility opened outside of its home base in Rochester, Minnesota. It opened an Arizona campus in 1987.
The story is that Davis family patriarch J.E. Davis, considered one of Jacksonville’s most powerful business leaders, was so pleased by the care he received at Mayo Clinic in Minnesota that he led the recruitment drive to bring Mayo to Jacksonville.
That has led to a larger campus.
“Mayo Clinic in Florida plans to strategically grow across our 602 acres over several decades, spurring significant economic development and creating thousands of new jobs in the medical sector,” said spokesperson Kevin Punsky in an email Jan. 31.
The statement said:
“Mayo Clinic plans to further expand and enable our vision of a truly unique health care ecosystem that leverages the most advanced spaces and technologies to support our clinical practice, education, research and innovation activities for the remainder of this century.”
Punsky, Mayo Clinic in Florida communications manager, said the plan “will deliver best-in-class facilities, immersive and experimental learning environments, and innovation technology hubs that drive strategic collaborations dedicated to advancing scientific discoveries.”
The property land uses for the additional acreage are designated as medical, related residential and hotel.
Those are similar to the uses at Mayo’s Main Campus at southeast San Pablo Road and W.M. Davis Parkway. W. M. Davis was the father of J.E. Davis and considered the founding father of Winn-Dixie.
City Council legislation
Mayo Clinic Jacksonville submitted an application Nov. 28 to the city for changes to the DRI for the expansion.
City Council will review Ordinance 2023-13 to approve the changes.
A public hearing is scheduled Feb. 14 at Council and Feb. 22 at the Council Land Use and Zoning Committee.
The committee introduced legislation to amend the Mayo DRI, which was approved in 1988 and modified and amended. The phasing and build-out also has been extended.
The build-out now is extended to 2045 with a total 7.5 million square feet of primarily medical-related facilities, along with hotel rooms.
Punsky explained that the DRI amendment would be extended two years through 2045, but the additional property gives the medical center enough property to grow for 100 years.
DRIs in Florida were reviewed by the state to identify the regional and state impacts of large-scale developments.
In 2018, the state eliminated the review process for existing DRIs, leaving that to local governments.
The Smith Hulsey & Busey law firm and the Prosser Inc. civil engineering firm are the agents.
The application says standalone commercial, office or residential uses will be permitted within the North Campus through converted related medical and support facilities or hotel facilities.
Punsky said the 210 acres were not part of a DRI and were approved for multiuse residential. Once the land is added to the DRI, Mayo will need to amend the land use and rezone the property.
Investment tops $1 billion
Mayo Clinic in Florida says that in the 37 years since it opened in Jacksonville, it has grown from a single five-story building to three main patient care buildings, a hospital, two research buildings and a collection of free-standing clinical care facilities, administrative buildings and support centers.
Mayo Clinic’s campus in Florida started with 35 physicians and 145 support staff. Today, the campus has about 9,000 employees.
Mayo Clinic in Florida says it provides diagnosis, medical treatment, surgery and care for more than 168,000 patients annually in 40 specialty areas.
It says that since 2016, it has invested more than $1 billion in major construction projects, more than doubling its space by 2026 with new facilities for patient care, biomedical research, education and technology.
The major projects include the Discovery and Innovation Building and the Dorothy J. and Harry T. Mangurian Jr. Building.
Mayo Clinic will add more than 600,000 square feet of space for medical destinations, patient care, biomedical research and technology by 2025.
The opening of Mayo helped establish health care as one of Jacksonville’s major industries.
