The University of Florida has pulled out of the proposed Avenir neighborhood hospital with Jupiter Medical Center slated for the massive development in Palm Beach Gardens.
“After a period of additional assessment with the arrival of new leadership at UF Health, we’ve pressed pause,” said UF spokeswoman Melanie Fridl Ross. “We remain collaborative with Jupiter Medical Center and on good terms, with no immediate plans to embark on new ventures at this time.”
Stet News is the first to report on the split on the Avenir project four months after the Gainesville university replaced UF Health CEO David Nelson with Dr. Stephen Motew.
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Jupiter Medical, though, says it’s still all in on the proposed two-story, 53,000-square-foot hospital for the 3,900-home community sprouting up on the former 4,763-acre Vavrus Ranch on Northlake Boulevard west of the Beeline Highway.
“Jupiter Medical Center is expanding access to world-class health care in our region and we are excited about the progress of our Neighborhood Hospital and medical campus at Avenir,” said Dr. Amit Rastogi, president and CEO.
“We are on schedule to open in early 2026 and eagerly anticipate serving our neighbors in western Palm Beach County.”
The key phrase there is “neighborhood hospital” as Jupiter plans to create something special for Avenir that is not a medical center but certainly not a minute clinic either — what is called a micro hospital. It will employ about 50.
The hospital was proposed in 2022 to offer 24-hour emergency services, 20 beds, operating rooms, a diagnostic laboratory and imaging services.
Losing UF appears to have delayed the project, which was scheduled to open this year.
Avenir Development referred questions about the hospital to the Sina Cos., the Palm Beach Gardens-based real estate firm that was developing the hospital. Sina, though, referred questions to Jupiter Medical.
So what happened to UF? The university, which took over the Jupiter campus of Scripps Florida in 2021 and has control of 70 acres of vacant land in the Palm Beach Gardens Alton community, also backtracked on a planned graduate campus in downtown West Palm Beach. Stet News reported in April that Vanderbilt University may develop some of the property instead.
UF appears to be focusing on investment closer to its Gainesville home. It recently broke ground on the UF Health Durbin Park in St. Johns County, a 42.5-acre health and wellness campus that will include a hospital.
The university is focusing on St. Johns and Duval counties because of their growth, Mori Hosseini, chair of the UF board of trustees, told the Jacksonville Daily Record.
And, of course, the big Gators’ news is that Ben Sasse, the former U.S. senator who left to be president of UF, resigned this month after his wife was diagnosed with epilepsy.
This story was originally published by Stet News Palm Beach, a WLRN News partner.
