When Baptist Health opened its Miami Beach facility last July, its ambulatory surgical center was limited to gastroenterology as the City’s Code did not specifically define ambulatory surgical centers or how and where they would be allowed to operate when the Planning Board approved its Conditional Use Permit in 2015. Since then, the five-story building was constructed and the Baptist Health facility is fully operational with a diagnostic center, endoscopy center, urgent care and primary care services, along with the Miami Orthopedics & Sports Medicine Institute.
In 2018, however, the City Code was amended, defining ambulatory surgical centers (ASC) and allowing them as Class II medical uses within CD-2 zoning districts. Baptist Health at 709 Alton Road is located within a CD-2 district. The building is owned and was developed by Alton Road Development LLC which is controlled by Sonny Kahn, Russell Galbut, and Bruce Menin. Baptist Health, a not-for-profit corporation, is a tenant in the building.
Alton Road Development attorney Joseph Goldstein wrote in the application, because of the complexity and considerable analysis of what was “then a new use” [emphasis his], “Baptist agreed to limit the procedures in the facility solely to gastroenterology. This enabled Baptist, [City of Miami Beach] professional staff, and the [Planning] Board to narrow their analysis of the requested use.”
Since its opening, “The Applicant believes that the facility and its uses have been a benefit to the neighborhood and the City as a whole, and is not aware of any problems [or] deficiencies with traffic, parking, or any of the other issues that the Board and professional staff were assessing at the time of the original approvals,” Goldstein wrote. “[T]he Applicant believes that its impacts are no greater than those of any [of] the other commercial uses in the CD-2 district that lines the Alton Road corridor” and is asking that it be permitted to operate an ambulatory surgical center as now defined in the Code which is “a facility that is not part of a hospital and provides elective surgical care where the patient is admitted to and discharged from the facility within the same working day.”
The item is on the September 24 Planning Board agenda. Details of the application are here.
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