By Sara Bridget Au

There weren’t enough shovels for everyone who wanted to start digging at the ground-breaking ceremony for the Keith A Ewing Medical Office Building in Avalon Park. The nineteen instrumental players in bringing this project to fruition shared the eight available shovels, but that didn’t dampen their enthusiasm for breaking new ground on this ground-breaking building.

“My dream is finally becoming a reality,” said Donna Marini at the event, her eyes shining with tears. For Marini, this was a personal mission. When the Ewing Building opens in the second half of this year, it will house a specialized 20-bed transitional living facility for people with brain and spinal injuries who are unable to care for themselves. Marini credits a similar facility with giving her back her independence after a car accident left her a quadriplegic at 21 years of age.

“Ten years ago, I could tell that facility wasn’t doing too great, and so I started knocking on doors trying to make sure it didn’t close,” said Marini, explaining how she came to Avalon Park developer Beat Kahli’s door with the idea for this project. Kahli, unlike other developers, was immediately receptive, stated Marini, and he assigned the coordination of the planning to Keith Ewing, CFO with Avalon Park Associates.

Ewing brought in the Center for Comprehensive Services, one of the largest and oldest providers of community-based post-acute brain injury rehabilitation services in the country, as well as MENTOR ABI, a national network of local medical specialists who provide rehabilitation and ongoing support for people with acquired brain injury and other neurological disorders.

CCS-Orlando at Avalon Park will be the only transitional living facility in the entire state designed to serve people with spinal cord injuries. It will offer world class treatment, including residential intensive therapy, nursing, physician coverage, dietary services, and counseling. The Keith A. Ewing Medical Office Building will also house doctors from Florida Hospital East. Ed Noseworthy, hospital administrator, promised a specific goal of bringing in pediatricians, internists and orthopedists, as these three specialties are particularly needed in the Avalon Park area. “It is very important for us as a hospital to make sure we bring in the right physicians,” said Noseworthy.

While Keith Ewing was instrumental in bringing Donna Marini’s dream to fruition, his life was cut tragically short last March. At 46 years of age, Ewing died unexpectedly, leaving a wife, three children and two stepchildren behind. His boss said Ewing epitomized the Avalon Park motto. “I don’t know anyone who was more ‘live, work, learn and play’ than Keith Ewing,” said Kahli just before a moment of silence at the groundbreaking ceremony in December. Kahli named the building after Ewing to honor his memory and dedication to the project.

Sandra Ewing, Keith’s wife, still lives in the couple’s Avalon Park home down the street from where the Medical Office Building will be located, just north of Founder’s Square. She says driving by the building every day will be bittersweet: “I’m sad he’s not here to see this because he worked so hard on it – this was his baby and he talked about it all the time.”

The Keith A. Ewing Medical Office Building is anticipated to open in the summer or fall of this year.