Born In Lake Mary
by Chip Colandreo
It’s one of Mayor David Mealor’s favorite yarns about life in Lake Mary: You can get a world-class education here beginning in an exceptional early-learning academy, continuing in A-rated public schools, and culminating in a bachelor’s degree from Seminole State College. You can then build a stellar career at some of the best companies on Earth - Deloitte, Verizon, AAA, and others – and eventually settle into a well-earned retirement at one of the most luxurious senior-living communities in the world. All of it you can do without ever leaving the Lake Mary city limits. But there’s always been one missing piece. Wherever your Lake Mary journey takes you, it had to begin somewhere else.
Not anymore...
At least, not as of January 11, 2025.
That’s the day the new Orlando Health Lake Mary Hospital will open and herald a new era for the city and all of Seminole County. It’s the first day a Lake Mary legacy can begin from birth.
Lake Mary Life... Literally!
The headlining feature of the new Lake Mary Hospital will be its comprehensive women’s services including Labor & Delivery. Space is set aside, too, for a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), and plans are underway to add this needed service to our community in the future.
“We’re so incredibly proud to bring these services to Lake Mary for the very first time,” says Shawn Molsberger, senior vice president of Orlando Health’s North Florida region and president of Orlando Health Lake Mary Hospital. “Lake Mary – and really all of Seminole County – is now home to the newest and best medical technology there is, all with a team of doctors, nurses, and staff that is absolutely second to none.”
And that team includes a leader who will be making a full-circle return to Seminole County to run the women’s services department. Rose Palmer is the new director of operations for women’s services at Orlando Health Lake Mary Hospital having spent the bulk of her career at the Arnold and Winnie Palmer hospitals in downtown Orlando.
“I originally completed my nursing school at Seminole State, and now I feel like I’m coming back home,” Rose says with a wide smile. “Building this program and this women’s care team from scratch has been an honor.”
“As soon as we announced we were building this hospital and that Rose was going to run the women’s department, many of Orlando Health’s best doctors and nurses lined up to work here,” says Shawn. “Many of them already live in this area, anyway. The medical talent this hospital is bringing to the Lake Mary community is awe-inspiring.”
C-sections are already scheduled in Lake Mary for January 13, and if a mom times her labor just right, she might deliver even sooner. Shawn reports there’s a friendly competition between Orlando Health obstetricians to see who will be first to bring a Lake Mary native into the world.
The new babies are understandably grabbing the headlines, but Rose explains the women’s services department will also feature additional services such as gynecology care, lactation, and outpatient maternal health.
The Heart of Lake Mary
Outside the women’s department, the Lake Mary Hospital will include the most advanced surgical equipment in the world – much of it dedicated to minimally invasive surgery and cardiovascular care.
The hospital will feature the latest da Vinci robotic surgical machines allowing doctors to perform incredibly complex operations on internal organs and systems via tiny incisions in the skin. Three on-site heart catheterization labs give interventional cardiologists the ability to examine and repair patients’ hearts and vascular systems with similar tiny incisions, and the Lake Mary Hospital will include six full operating suites and related observation and recovery facilities. There will be an on-site Scripts pharmacy, too, so patients can be discharged with new medications in hand. Hospital employees can use the pharmacy, as well.
Each floor of the hospital will have its own soothing color scheme and its own signature scent, too. A popular feature picked up from Orlando Health Jewett Orthopedic Institute, unique difusers on each floor will keep the spaces smelling like anything but a hospital.
“Orlando Health Lake Mary Hospital is the crown jewel of our Wellness and Technology Park,” says Mayor Mealor. “This hospital represents a generational commitment to our community to enhance an already exceptional quality of life here. Folks are starting to call Lake Mary Medical City North, and I couldn’t be more proud.”
Orlando Health Lake Mary Hospital By the Numbers
455,000 square feet
16 ICU beds
6 operating rooms
3 catheterization labs
6,834 pieces of medical equipment
2,170 tons of rebar
51,000 square feet of glass
1,300 doors
124 beds with the ability to expand to 240 beds
Moving Day
On the morning of Saturday, January 11, patients at Orlando Health South Seminole Hospital will awake, take their morning medications, and then be moved in a fleet of ambulances and other transports 15 minutes down the road where brand-new beds in brand-new rooms at the brand-new Lake Mary Hospital will be ready to receive them. That’s how hospital activity at South Seminole will cease and Lake Mary will open. Hospital leaders estimate the process will take about 12 hours, but it will all be done that day.
You can’t make a move that big and important without practice, and that’s just what a handful of community volunteers – including our own Chip Colandreo – helped Orlando Health do during a mock move in mid-December.
The South Seminole Emergency Room will continue to serve the Longwood community until a new, freestanding ER opens on the South Seminole property later in 2025.