$12M outpatient center to be built near SMH-Venice campus

A new endoscopy and digestive health center is planned near Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice.

Expected to open in late 2027, the facility will help accommodate the explosive growth in gastrointestinal procedures the Venice hospital has seen in the last three years. It will also enable the hospital to focus on more acute, complex cases while sending patients who need routine procedures like colonoscopies to the outpatient center.

The Sarasota County Public Hospital Board recently approved plans for the $12 million outpatient center, which will be in a leased facility being developed on a vacant parcel at 2695 Curry Lane, near the Venice hospital campus. Health care real estate firm Flagship Healthcare Properties is developing a three-story, 54,000-square-foot medical office building there.

Sarasota Memorial has signed a lease to occupy at least one floor with outpatient endoscopy services at the building, according to a statement. Its endoscopy center will span 17,000 square feet, with 24 exam rooms, four procedural suites and pre- and post-procedural spaces. The facility will be equipped with the latest endoscopic testing and treatment technology to treat disorders and diseases involving the stomach, esophagus, colon, intestines, liver, pancreas and biliary tree.

“We are looking forward to opening the outpatient center and expanding capacity as soon as possible,” SMH-Venice President Sharon Roush says in the statement. “The need for screenings, both routine outpatient and inpatient, has been increasing every year.”

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Since the SMH-Venice hospital opened in 2021, the volume of gastrointestinal procedures it has handled has nearly quadrupled. In FY 2022, the facility performed just over 1,000 of these procedures; in FY 2025, the number has grown to 3,762 gastrointestinal procedures.

Currently, all endoscopies are performed inside the hospital. Moving the routine cases to the outpatient center will have a positive impact on patients, according to Roush.

“Expanding our capacity will reduce wait times and the amount of time from screening to diagnosis, ensuring timely care for all of our patients,” Roush says in a statement. 

The outpatient location will remain a department of the hospital and will become the new home for SMH First Physicians Group’s gastroenterology team.

Flagship Healthcare Properties plans to complete the medical office building in the second quarter of 2027.