JUPITER MEDICAL CENTER TO EXPAND
Town Council also gives approval for new main entrance.
JUPITER — Jupiter Medical Center’s proposal to add an intensive care unit for newborns as well as a new main entrance won approval from the Town Council on a 3-0 vote Tuesday night.
Vice Mayor Ron Delaney was absent from Tuesday’s council meeting, while council member Ilan Kaufer abstained from the vote. Kaufer sits on JMC’s corporate board.
The hospital plans to add a fivestory, 41,231-square-foot building to the east side of the main entrance where the current pedestrian courtyard sits.
The space would be used for a 16-bed, level 2 neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) which would occupy the third floor, as well as new inpatient beds on the fourth and fifth floors.
The expansion also would create an entrance into the main hospital building on the east side of the campus. A driveway would be built off Old Dixie Highway to lead to the new entrance.
Construction is set to begin immediately and should be complete by the fall of 2019, said Kathleen Ahern, Jupiter Medical Center’s executive director of marketing and consumerism.
“It sounds like a wonderful addition to the community to be able to have a NICU unit,” Mayor Todd Wodraska said Tuesday night. “There’s not many reasons that somebody would have to go anywhere outside of Jupiter to seek medical attention in the very near future.”
The closest NICU to Jupiter Medical Center is at St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach, JMC noted in its presentation to the council Tuesday night.
St. Mary’s is about 15 miles south of JMC.
Jupiter Medical Center has long wanted to build a NICU, the hospital said, and recently passed the required threshold of 1,500 births per year to qualify.
“This will enable the Jupiter Medical Center to provide comprehensive medical care to families in Jupiter and surrounding communities,” the hospital said.
The proposed additions are part of a $300 million campaign that also includes a new cancer institute and a stroke program.
In February, the Town Council approved plans for a 55,000-square-foot center near Military Trail and Jupiter Lakes Boulevard to be called the Anderson Family Cancer Institute. The existing Foshay Cancer Center will become part of this new state-of-theart facility, which should be complete by next summer.
JMC also plans to add an off-site parking lot for 310 employees.
That project also was approved by the council in February and is expected to be complete later this year, according to JMC.