It is official! After more than six years of planning and construction, the Orlando Health Watson Clinic Lakeland Highlands Hospital has set its official opening date for July 8, 2026.
Located at 4000 Lakeland Highlands Road, this massive $500+ million facility is a major milestone for south Lakeland—marking the first brand-new hospital to open within the city limits in more than a century.
Here is a quick breakdown of what the new 550,000-square-foot facility is bringing to the community:
Key Stats & Capabilities
- Capacity: Over 300 inpatient beds and 49 emergency department beds.
- Staffing: The opening brings more than 1,500 new jobs and roughly 75 physicians to the area, connecting Watson Clinic’s existing local provider network directly with Orlando Health’s specialized hospital services.
- Advanced Specialty Care: Features 11 state-of-the-art operating rooms, a dedicated interventional radiology suite equipped with an advanced biplane radiology scanner for complex stroke care, and diagnostic/interventional cardiac catheterization labs.
- Center for Women and Babies: Offers dedicated labor and delivery suites designed so patients can labor, deliver, and recover in the same room. A 12-bed Level II Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) is scheduled to open shortly after the main launch.
Looking Ahead: Orlando Health is also actively building a separate, freestanding emergency department in North Lakeland (located at Lakeland Park Center), which is scheduled to follow this opening and begin seeing patients in October 2026.
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