AdventHealth has announced the first phase of plans for 10.75 acres in St. Johns County. The health care system will build a 12-bed off-site emergency department (OSED) to expand services in the rapidly growing area.
Located east of I-95, near the intersection of State Road 207 and Wildwood Drive, construction is anticipated to begin in 2025 and be completed by early 2026. The location is roughly 23 miles from the center of Palm Coast, and a shorter drive for north and northwest Palm Coast, where development has been brisk.
“Our new facility will give residents and visitors greater access to emergency medical care close to home,” said Audrey Gregory, executive vice president and CEO of the AdventHealth East Florida Division. “As an organization, AdventHealth has robust expansion plans, and this latest step forward is an important part of our organization’s long-term vision for growth and our mission to extend the healing ministry of Christ.”
In 2018, when the hospital network was known as Florida Hospital, it announced plans for a stand-alone, 12-bed ER at the I-95 interchange with Matanzas Woods Parkway in Palm Coast. While those plans did not go forward–at least not at that location: the St. Johns County project a few miles north appear to be the successor plans. In Palm Coast, AdventHealth built a second, 100-bed hospital on Palm Coast Parkway. It opened in July 2023 and served 23,0000 people in its first year. Meanwhile St. Augustine-based Flagler Health+’s plans to build a hospital on a 70-acre parcel west of U.S. 1 and Palm Coast Parkway fizzled.
Based in Altamonte Springs, AdventHealth is the only national non-profit health care system headquartered in Florida, with over 90,000 employees. It’ is among the largest parochial systems in the United States, with over 50 hospitals across nearly a dozen states.
AdventHealth’s expansion into St. Johns County builds on the organization’s roots in Flagler County, where it has cared for the community for over two decades and employs nearly 1,800 people. It is by far the largest private-sector employer, and sometime in the last couple of years became the largest private or public employer, exceeding the Flagler school district’s 1,600-odd employees.
Within the past year, AdventHealth has invested over $200 million in Flagler County’s health care infrastructure, including opening the county’s second hospital, building the Freytag Cancer Center, and bringing eight new physicians to the area.
“Health care has become the largest job creator in Flagler County, and we are proud of our role in reaching this new milestone,” said Denyse Bales-Chubb, president/CEO of the AdventHealth market in Flagler and St. Johns counties. “As our communities grow, we have been growing right alongside them, and we are excited to do the same in St. Johns County.”
