The front of the newly renovated and expanded Gulf Coast Medical Center in South Fort Myers. PHOTOS PROVIDED

Skanska, one of the world’s leading construction and development firms, announces the completion of the $242 million renovation and expansion of Lee Health’s Gulf Coast Medical Center in Fort Myers.

The main portion of the project consisted of a three-floor vertical expansion that added 216 patient rooms on top of an existing bed tower and a new three-story tower with 52 intensive care unit rooms, a 16-bay dialysis suite, and three new endoscopy and bronchoscopy procedure rooms to better serve the growing population in Southwest Florida.

Skanska completed the project in a joint venture with Gates Construction and the design was led by architecture firm HKS Inc. The project comprised a 365,700-square-foot expansion and a renovation of 48,500 square feet of healthcare space.

As part of the first phase, a 1,300-space parking garage was built to accommodate the hospital’s growth and provide additional parking for the medical staff, patients, and visitors.

“Skanska is proud to have partnered with Lee Health to deliver this extensive hospital expansion and renovation that will help meet the growing healthcare needs in the Southwest Florida community,” said Michael C. Brown, executive vice president and general manager of Skanska USA’s building operations in Florida. “As a leader in healthcare construction in Florida, Skanska’s team worked carefully and diligently to build these innovative hospital facilities while the surrounding medical campus remained open to serve patients.”

To support the increased bed capacity of the Gulf Coast Medical Center campus, expansions and renovations were completed in the clinical laboratory spaces, pharmacy department, food services, public dining space, back-of-the-house services, and the central energy plant. The project also doubled the size of the radiology and emergency departments, adding a new MRI, seven ultrasound rooms, 27 regular and airborne isolation exam rooms, four state-of-the-art trauma bays, two X-ray rooms, two CT rooms, and a second helipad.

The construction efforts allowed the hospital to increase its overall bed capacity from 356 to 624. The project was fully completed in late 2021 with a total of 43 project phases delivered.

Currently, Skanska has more than a dozen active construction projects across Florida, including the University of Miami’s Frost Institute of Chemistry and Molecular Science, Orlando Health Jewett Orthopedic Institute in downtown Orlando and the University of South Florida’s Research Park Mixed Use Lab & Office project in Tampa.