Since its inception, Lake Nona’s Medical City has become the hub of medical treatment, education and research in Central Florida. Anchored by UCF’s College of Medicine, the MD Anderson Cancer Center and the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute, Medical City will be expanding its medical cluster in the coming year.

One of Medical City’s new additions, the VA Medical Center, will open in the fall of 2012. The $665-million building will take up 1.2 million square feet, which is large for a medical center. Also on the property will be a community living center and the SimLEARN building, which will provide training to nurses and doctors.

“Our property is about the size of Sea World and our building will fill up most of that space,” says Joe Battle, the VA’s Activations Executive.

Battle says the hospital will be very modern and will be equipped with the latest diagnostic care equipment. The building is also energy efficient in the hopes of earning a silver LEED certificate. It offers single rooms with great views and there are healing gardens that offer patients a place to get some peace of mind.

Since the patients are older, specific accommodations have been made to help them during their stay. For example, the parking garage is part of the building so patients don’t have to walk a long distance to get to the building. The rooms are also equipped with mechanical lifts so the hospital staff doesn’t have to lift patients out of bed.

“Our hospital is set up for ease of use with the veteran so they can get where they need to go with the minimum amount of effort,” says Battle.

In fact, the entire building was designed with the veterans in mind.

“We want the veterans to feel like they’re being honored,” says Battle. “Our patients will know they’re coming to a place that’s special for them.”

But the VA isn’t the only facility opening next fall. The Nemours Children’s Hospital will be a 630,000-square-foot building with the capacity for 137 beds.

“The rooms will all be single-family rooms and will be 50 percent larger than required,” says Josh Wilson, senior manager of public and community relations for Nemours.

Like the VA, Nemours caters to its patients and has specifically designed the hospital to be family friendly. As Wilson says, the building is designed by families for families. Nemours’ own family advisory council, which consists of parents of Nemours’ patients, was able to give input on how the building should be designed.

“They met with an architect, helping to make careful decisions about how the hospital should look and feel,” says Wilson.

Each of the rooms is equipped with a colored light and kids can choose which color they’d like for their room. There will be rooftop gardens on the second and fourth floors as well as nature trails and a healing garden outside.

Both Nemours and the VA will have the opportunity to partner with other medical powerhouses in Medical City, including the medical schools, UCF and UF.

UF will open its 100,000-square-foot academic and research facility next summer. The lab will allow students to study aging and mobility as well as conduct drug research.

Valencia Community College will also open a campus on Lake Nona. The first of four buildings is expected to open August 2012 and will contain classrooms, labs, a bookstore and café as well as a library. The building will cost Valencia close to $22 million and will take up around 250,000 square feet. About 5,000 students will be serviced through this new campus.

Coupled with dozens of smaller-scale medical and nonmedical businesses, the Lake Nona area shows little sign of slowing down anytime soon.

Article by Marisa Ramiccio