First Look: HCA Releases a Rendering of Its Planned $300 Million Cape Coral Hospital
HCA Florida Healthcare unveiled the first architectural rendering Monday of the full-scale hospital it plans to build at 322 SW Pine Island Road — a $300 million project carrying nearly $31 million in city incentives, with construction projected to start in 2027 and finish in 2029.
Cape Coral's second hospital now has a face, with a caveat attached. HCA Florida Healthcare on Monday released the first architectural rendering of its future $300 million hospital at 322 SW Pine Island Road, less than two weeks after the City Council unanimously approved an incentive package worth nearly $31 million over 25 years. 'The design remains subject to change as planning progresses,' HCA said in its news release.
The project expands the freestanding emergency room already at the site into a full-scale hospital: 200,000 square feet of new building space with up to 100 beds in phase one, plus a planned 40,000-square-foot medical office building. One number is still unsettled — the incentives agreement references 60 beds, and HCA said a final bed count has not been determined. The package itself breaks down as up to $5.25 million for job creation, $6 million for site development, a $17.9 million enhanced property value recapture grant and $1.8 million in impact-fee assistance, on a project whose anticipated taxable value is expected to exceed $100 million. Construction is projected to start in 2027, for completion in 2029.
The hospital would end Lee Health's monopoly on hospital care in Florida's eighth-largest city. Nonprofit Lee Health runs the 303-bed Cape Coral Hospital on Del Prado Boulevard, about 4.5 miles from the HCA site, and its officials questioned the public money during the October debate: chief of staff Michael Nachef noted HCA's reported nearly $6.8 billion in net profit last year and said the $31 million amounts to 30 percent of the city's annual property tax revenue, arguing residents deserve both expanded access to care and responsible stewardship of public resources. City and hospital officials began talking in May 2025, as the Cape's population reached 240,000, and the project was announced in August. When it opens, the Cape Coral hospital will be HCA Florida Healthcare's 51st hospital in the state.
