Moffitt at SouthShore Is Taking Shape
Moffitt Cancer Center at SouthShore continues to take shape in southern Hillsborough County with windows and logos making an appearance in early April. It’s a sure sign that construction is on schedule and the building is on track for a grand opening in January 2025, according to Jazmine Calzada, director of Nursing and Ambulatory Clinic Operations at Moffitt.
“As of now we expect to have 153 team members working at SouthShore,” Calzada said. “We have already hired doctors and have begun recruiting other positions as we head into the summer months.”
According to Calzada, 40% of the positions at SouthShore are expected to start by the beginning of October. The other positions will start closer to the opening date.
Recruiting for positions is ongoing and is divided into phases to ensure candidates are hired at the appropriate time, she said.
“We will have both familiar faces and new faces working at Moffitt at SouthShore when we welcome our first patients in January,” Calzada said. “We are looking forward to fulfilling the need of patients south of our Magnolia campus by bringing cancer care directly to their communities.”
Patients can begin scheduling appointments at Moffitt at SouthShore this fall, about three months before the doors open, Calzada said.
The 75,000-square-foot facility at 2709 E. College Ave. in Ruskin sits on 9 acres and will be home to 18 exam rooms and 10 bays strictly for blood draws. The new building comes after Moffitt conducted extensive research on patient volumes and found that a large number come from south of the cancer center’s Magnolia campus at the University of South Florida.
Moffitt at SouthShore will open with a full radiology suite offering MRIs, CTs, ultrasounds, mammograms and PET scans.
“Our purpose is to reach more patients and to ease the burden some patients may have of getting to our Magnolia campus,” Calzada said.
The new facility will offer everything the other campuses in Tampa offer to patients except for surgical procedures and inpatient stays. Those patients will still need to travel to Tampa, Calzada said.
“But radiology imaging, labs, chemotherapy infusions, radiation therapy and clinic appointments with cancer experts of all types will be available here,” Calzada said.
It is estimated that by Moffitt at SouthShore’s fifth year of operation, approximately 9,000 patients will be served.
