Boyd Development & partner plan proton therapy center for Hamlin medical campus

UPDATED: September 26, 2016 1:39 PM — Boyd Development has partnered with Knoxville-based Provision Healthcare to develop a proton therapy center that will kick off a 25-acre medical campus in Hamlin Town Center West, the companies announced on Monday.

Construction on the advanced cancer treatment facility will start "sometime in 2017," partner Ken Kupp told GrowthSpotter, with the proton center to be the first piece of a medical campus development.

The development will be done by a joint venture of Provision and Hamlin Retail Partners West, an affiliate of Boyd Development and Orlando-based Schrimsher Properties of Central Florida. The facility will be operated by Provision, and projects to receive up to 900 patients per year.

The relationship is more than a year in the making, formed by a local senior managing director of Cushman & Wakefield who himself is a 22-year resident of West Orange County, and a cancer survivor.

Mark Stratman began helping Provision's business development team search for sites in Greater Orlando in September 2015. They looked closely at Lake Nona, Downtown Orlando and Turkey Lake Road, but Stratman told his clients they needed to meet the Boyd team.

"I know what Provision and proton therapy can do for our community, having been through cancer treatment myself. We went over a lot of locations, but I really wanted to get them out to West Orange, to be honest. As we looked at sites the Hamlin one stood out, and I told them the Boyd guys are really going to make Hamlin great," Stratman told GrowthSpotter on Monday.

"Provision is convinced this can be a destination treatment center," he continued. "The cost of this development will be really substantial."

There are currently less than 25 proton therapy centers operating in the United States, according to Boyd Development. This form of radiation treatment uses protons instead of X-rays to treat cancer.

Provision chose West Orange County for its "dynamic growth" and central location within the state, and the Hamlin Town Center in particular for its planned walkable town center with retail and planned medical campus, Provision CEO Terry Douglass said in a press statement.

Associated medical office buildings and other cancer treatment facilities could follow in development of the medical campus, according to Provision.

The Hamlin proton center will be Provision's third in the Southeast U.S., and will be a three-treatment room center with state-of-the-art proton systems technology of ProNova Solutions, an affiliate of Provision.

Hamlin, the 850-acre mixed-use development in southwest Orange County, has a planned 130-acre mixed-use Town Center West, which is located at the SR 429 and New Independence interchange.

Boyd Development declined to comment on how the future Hamlin medical campus may compete with or complement a planned 74-acre medical campus by Orlando Health along Porter Road with a 70,000-square-foot freestanding emergency department, based a few miles south of Hamlin Town Center.

Orlando Health is also planning a 30,000-square-foot comprehensive cancer center in Ocoee, estimated at $28 million in investment.

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