A record $100M donation helped fund a new Miami ER, one of the largest in the US

Miami-Dade’s public hospital system raised a historic $100 million donation from South Florida philanthropists to help fund its long-awaited, soon-to-open emergency room, one of the largest in the nation.

“This ER is a gamechanger for emergency medicine in our community,” David Zambrana, Jackson’s president and chief operating officer and soon-to-be CEO, told the Miami Herald, describing it as the “next era of care” for the community as demand increases.

On Thursday night, a crowd of donors and South Florida leaders were given a sneak peek of the ER. Located on the Miami campus of Jackson Memorial Hospital, it is three times the size of the current ER, and spans two city blocks, at 178,000 square feet.

Jackson’s ER was already one of the busiest in the nation. Now with the newly expanded ER, Jackson is estimated to see about 110,000 to 120,000 patients in the year after the new facility opens next week.

The facility is meant to be a one-stop shop for emergency care, with private patient rooms, a “fast track” area for patients who are expected to be discharged within two hours, and pharmacy, X-ray, MRI and other diagnostic tests available to treat patients and either discharge them or admit them more quickly.

“We’ve been working on this for the last six years,” retiring CEO Carlos Migoya told the Herald, explaining that the state-of-the-art ER will feature the latest tech to help doctors provide fast and high-quality care to “everyone, from a broken arm all the way to a stroke or a heart attack.”

“The emergency room is the front door to Jackson Memorial, so the best experience has to happen here,” said Migoya.

The donors

Stuart Miller, chair and CEO of the Lennar Corporation, Benjamín León Jr. of Leon Medical Centers, philanthropists Trish and Dan Bell, and Royal Caribbean Group are just some of the many donors who banded together to help raise the record $100 million donation for the $400 million ER. The rest of the funds for the ER come from bonds, capital investments and contributions.

Migoya said the Jackson Health Foundation had never received a gift of more than $10 million, so the thought that it could potentially reach $100 million “did not just feel amibitious, it felt impossible.”

León, who donated $10 million to the ER, told the crowd Thursday night that “to have an emergency room of this magnitude, that I have just seen, in our community is truly a gift — one that will serve anyone who walks through its doors, day or night, for generations to come.”

The founding partners that have pledged donations to the new facility include the Lennar Foundation, the Miller Foundation, Benjamín León Jr. Charitable Foundation, Related Group, Royal Caribbean Group Foundation, the Kadre family, José Milton Foundation, the Batchelor Foundation, Trish and Dan Bell, the Codina family, the Gorson family, Harold Marzouka Jr. and the Françoise Marzouka Family Trust. Additional philanthropists have also pledged their support, including the Guiribitey family, David Pyle and Chaim Katzman, to name a few.

When will the new Jackson ER open?

The first phase of the expanded ER, which will care for adult patients at 1026 NW 19th St., is set to open Thursday, April 23. Parents can continue to bring their kids to the existing ER, through the 17th Street entrance, while the hospital works on the second phase of the project, to renovate the pediatric wing of the facility.

Once the entire ER project is completed in 2027, the facility will have more than 200 patient rooms, including 57 observation rooms, 30 UHealth Jackson Children’s Care pediatric rooms and six resuscitation rooms, as well as designated treatment areas for mental health patients and an autism-friendly room in the pediatric wing.

“This is what we’re all about. This is who we are as a community,” Miller, the chair of the University of Miami Health System’s board of directors, said as he thanked donors. Miller, whom Migoya described as the “visionary” for the record fundraising, gave $35 million to the project through his Lennar and Miller foundations.

Thursday’s event also served as the kickoff for “One Day for Jackson,” the annual giving campaign of the Jackson Health Foundation, the health system’s fundraising arm. Flavia Llizo, the foundation’s CEO, told the Herald the campaign was well on its way to surpass last year’s $1 million record by the end of the month to help support services across Miami-Dade’s public hospital network.

The event was, in Migoya’s words, full of the “who’s who” of Miami. Some of the people spotted in the crowd included Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, Miami Mayor Eileen Higgins, Miami-Dade County Supervisor of Elections Alina Garcia and members of The Public Health Trust, Jackson’s governing body.

On Thursday, the Miami-headquartered Royal Caribbean cruise line also announced a $5 million donation to Jackson’s fundraising arm to help create a new emergency medicine residency program as the first act of its newly launched Royal Carribbean Group Foundation, according to Dana Ritzcovan, executive vice president, chief people and administrative officer.

“This is particularly near and dear to us because it is in our backyard,” Ritzcovan told the Herald.

Here are a few more photos from the event:

Michelle Marchante

Miami Herald

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Michelle Marchante covers the pulse of healthcare in South Florida and also the City of Coral Gables. Before that, she covered the COVID-19 pandemic, hurricanes, crime, education, entertainment and other topics in South Florida for the Herald as a breaking news reporter. She recently won first place in the health reporting category in the 2025 Sunshine State Awards for her coverage of Steward Health’s bankruptcy. An investigative series about the abrupt closure of a Miami heart transplant program led Michelle and her colleagues to be recognized as finalists in two 2024 Florida Sunshine State Award categories. She also won second place in the 73rd annual Green Eyeshade Awards for her consumer-focused healthcare stories and was part of the team of reporters who won a 2022 Pulitzer Prize for the Miami Herald’s breaking news coverage of the Surfside building collapse. Michelle graduated with honors from Florida International University and was a 2025 National Press Foundation Covering Workplace Mental Health fellow and a 2020-2021 Poynter-Koch Media & Journalism fellow.  Support my work with a digital subscription