Eastern Polk County to get new ER facility

A new freestanding emergency room is coming to eastern Polk County next year — the latest in a string of expansion and new construction projects Clearwater-based BayCare Health Systems has launched throughout the Tampa Bay region.

BayCare plans to build a new 12,000-square-foot emergency services facility in Pasco County’s Davenport area, at the southeast corner of U.S. Highway 27 and Ridgewood Lakes Boulevard, the hospital announced. The new facility will include 15 rooms for treating patients. Construction is scheduled to begin next year. 

"The Davenport site represents an exciting opportunity to offer more high-quality emergency care to our communities in eastern Polk County,” Todd Jones, BayCare’s chief strategy officer and chief ambulatory services officer, says in the announcement. “At a freestanding emergency department, we can often see patients within just a few minutes of their arrival. We know that patients are seeking out that level of convenience and efficiency for their care.” 

Patients to the new Davenport facility will have access to diagnostic imaging, laboratory services and integrated patient admission to a BayCare hospital if deemed necessary. The freestanding emergency room’s primary affiliation will be with Winter Haven Hospital, but it will also have a direct connection to St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital in Tampa to serve pediatric patients. 

The Pasco County emergency room is one in a slew of projects BayCare Health System launched across the Tampa Bay region at the start of the year. In 2024, the health care system posted $6.27 billion in operating revenue. 

The announcement comes on the heels of BayCare’s September release of plans to form a partnership with Metro Development Group’s master-planned “Connected City Community” in Wesley Chapel, bringing telehealth services and amenities to residents living in the Epperson and Mirada master-planned communities. 

The also nonprofit broke ground on its first hospital in Manatee County in April. The $563 million BayCare Manatee campus will be located on Moccasin Wallow Road in Palmetto, near the Interstate 75 and I-275 interchange. It’s expected to open in 2028 and will be the only hospital in the county north of the Manatee River. 

Then, in March, BayCare spent about $9 million on 1.6 acres in Tampa’s busy Westshore district to build another stand-alone emergency center similar to the one planned for Davenport. That facility will be located at the intersection of Kennedy Boulevard and Dale Mabry Highway. 

BayCare also has plans to open a new urgent care center in Pasco County — this one focused on mental health and addiction treatment. First announced last January, the health care system has since received more than $3.57 million in opioid settlement money earmarked for the project. 

Other facilities in the works include a satellite South Lakeland campus, a Valrico facility, a significant expansion of St. Joseph’s Children’s hospital and an “academic health and research corridor” located in a former office park west of St. Joseph’s, St. Joseph’s Children’s and St. Joseph’s Women’s hospitals. 

BayCare is already the region’s largest healthcare system, with 16 hospitals located throughout Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco and Polk counties.