LBK Foundation seeks $1.6 million for medical facility

The Longboat Key Foundation announced Tuesday it’s kicked off a campaign in private funding it hopes to raise by October to open a new medical facility called Longboat Key Center for Healthy Living by next season.

Longboat Key Foundation Chairman Bob Simmons told the Longboat Observer Monday the funds would establish a medical practice and a Key medical facility on the Key on or near the vicinity of Bay Isles Road and Bay Isles Parkway. The money will pay for a building lease, the build-out of the facility and two years worth of start-up and operating costs only on an as needed basis to run the facility year-round.

Simmons said the foundation is hopeful the center will be open by the end of the year or January 2016 if the funds are raised by October.

The center will offer primary health care services, which have not been available on Longboat Key since the Key’s sole primary doctor, Dr. Pamela Letts, retired in May 2014.

In a news release distributed Tuesday, the foundation released its statement of community need for the center, explaining the island “must restore and enhance the health care services available on Longboat Key to better serve residents and visitors, improve our self-sufficiency as a community and enable residents to remain on the Key as they age.”

The foundation was established through the Community Foundation of Sarasota County and exists “for the sole support and benefit of exclusively charitable purposes in and for the benefit of Longboat Key and its residents,” according to its fund agreement with CFSC. Contributions to the Longboat Key Foundation are tax-deductible. 

Contact Kurt Schultheis at [email protected].