June: SMH Takes Steps to Construct New Behavioral Health Pavilion

Sledgehammers in hand, Sarasota Memorial leaders gathered in June to celebrate the first step in building a state-of-the-art Behavioral Health Pavilion on its Sarasota campus.

Demolition of the 1960s-era Bayside East, which previously housed SMH behavioral health administrative offices and outpatient services, began to clear the way for a new, 82-bed, 95,000-square-foot Behavioral Health Pavilion that will be built on the east side of Osprey Avenue, between Waldemere and Hawthorne streets.

Later in 2021, the Sarasota Memorial Healthcare Foundation announced that Target Corp. Chairman and CEO Brian Cornell and wife Martha Cornell are donating $10 million to support the creation of the new facility, which will be named the Cornell Family Behavioral Health Pavilion. (See rendering of new facility at the top of this post.)

The current Bayside Hospital on the west side of Osprey Avenue will remain open until the new building is complete; outpatient programs have been temporarily relocated. Construction will begin in early 2022 and wrap up in 2023.

When complete, the new pavilion will have four inpatient units with private rooms dedicated for geriatric, adult, children/adolescent and acute-care patients, as well as sensory spaces designed to promote healing and meet the unique needs of patient populations. Part of the pavilion also will be dedicated to the hospital’s expanding outpatient counseling services and partial hospitalization program.

In June 2021, demolition of the old Bayside East building got under way to make way for a new Behavioral Health Pavilion. Marking the occasion, above from left, are Susan Fallis, director of nursing for SMH Behavioral Health Services; Matthew Thomas, MD, medical director of inpatient psychiatric services at SMH; Lorrie Liang, president of the SMH-Sarasota campus; and Terry Cassidy, executive director of SMH Behavioral Health Services.