Baptist Health Breaks Ground on New ER

Tower completion expected in 2029

The hum and grind of construction equipment could be heard in the background Sept. 17 as Baptist Health ceremoniously broke ground on the latest addition to its Downtown Southbank campus: a four-story emergency and patient tower that will care for both children and adults.

Baptist Health’s flagship campus on the Southbank is home to both Baptist Medical Center Jacksonville and Wolfson Children’s Hospital, and both care centers will contribute services to the new 123,000-square-foot McGehee Family Tower. The building permit for the estimated $187.3 million project was approved in August. It will be opened in phases and is expected to be completed by 2029. The building is named after the family of philanthropists Debbie and Sutton McGehee, Jr., who have had a decades-long relationship with Baptist Health.

“We thank you for your faith in our health system and our future,” said Michael Mayo, president and CEO of Baptist Health. “I want you to know that there will be children and adults, their lives will be changed and saved, and they won’t know you, but they will look up and they will see the McGehee Family Tower. They will say, ‘I don’t know who that is, but I am so thankful for them.’ That is what you mean to us.”

When asked to explain why his family became involved with the project, Sutton McGehee explained that the main reason was easy: “the children.”

“I had been on the board of Dreams Come True for 30 some-odd years, and, if nothing else, I had seen what having a really sick or critically injured child did to a family,” said McGehee. “We also did it for our community. Debbie and I were raised here, our kids were raised here, and all of our grandchildren are being raised here, so why not? It’s for the City of Jacksonville that we all love and we are proud to live here.”

According to a Baptist Health, the McGehee Family Tower will offer:

• Two separate emergency centers – one for adults and one designed to meet the special needs of children.
• Waiting areas and 100 emergency patient rooms: 63 for adults and 37 for children, including three pediatric trauma rooms on the first floor.
• Dedicated imaging, laboratory and ancillary resources to support emergency and trauma services.
• A new endoscopy suite, shell space for new cardiac procedure rooms and expanded areas for pre- and post-operative heart procedures on the second floor.
• Plans for a future expansion that will add 68 inpatient rooms on the third and fourth floors.
• An upgraded emergency entrance designed for a streamlined arrival experience, with a prominent patient drop-off zone offering patients and their loved ones quick and easy access to care.

Emergency rooms at Baptist Jacksonville and Wolfson Children’s Hospital will continue to remain open 24/7 throughout the entire duration of the construction project.

While the new, state-of-the-art emergency care center is a change to the campus, the hospital staff looks forward to the enhanced care it will allow them to offer.

“For the past 70 years, the community has relied on us in their time of need,” said Nicole B. Thomas, hospital president of Baptist Jacksonville. “We take this responsibility to heart and believe everyone deserves access to safe, high-quality care. Breaking ground on our tower reaffirms our long-standing commitment to being here 24/7 when our patients and their families need us most.”