Florida Hospital parent company makes huge land deal in Polk County
By Ashley Gurbal Kritzer
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Sep 27, 2017

Adventist Health System has acquired a large tract of land near Florida Polytechnic University in Lakeland and could eventually build a hospital there.

The hospital system paid $14.5 million for 103 acres off of Interstate 4, just west of the university.

Lisa Parks Abberger of Hauger-Bunch Inc. represented the seller, Miami-based Brown Development Group. David Calcanis represented the hospital system.

The land buy marks Adventist's entrance into Polk County. The Altamonte Springs-based health system operates 45 hospitals - 8,200 beds - in 11 states. It is the parent company of Florida Hospital, which has facilities throughout the Tampa Bay region.

Abberger said Adventist is considering building a clinic on the site to begin with and could build a 200-bed hospital there in the future. Florida regulates the expansion of hospitals with a certificate of need program, meaning that any new hospitals have to be approved by the state's Agency for Health Care Administration.

"This area is already attracting attention with the growing Florida Polytechnic and nearby 400-acre FDOT self-driving car test tracts," Abberger said in a statement. "These all will be important economic engines for east Polk."