A health-related attraction that takes visitors on a journey through the human body is the latest addition to the $2 billion Everest Place resort district on Osceola County’s tourism corridor.
The CORPUS Body Museum in The Netherlands has welcomed more than 2.7 million visitors over its 15 years and recently opened a second location in China.
Now the museum will open its first U.S. location alongside the Regency Health medical campus of the 224-acre resort at U.S. Highway 192 and State Road 429, according to a report in GrowthSpotter.
“It’s really, really cool,” Everest Place Marketing Director Jared Hansen said. “You basically get to take a tour through the human body. So when you’re walking through the different parts of the body, on the outside, you’re on the inside, and it has different features like the stomach, the brain, the eye. It’s really fascinating.”
Regency Health, led by Dr. Ashley Ansara, will consist of four components: the 62,000-square foot museum, 20,000 square feet of high-end retail, structured parking and a 3-story medical office building with an ambulatory surgical center, urgent care clinic, radiology center and a pharmacy on the first floor.
The ground floor will have 18-foot ceiling height, while the two upper floors will have 15-foot ceilings and will be available for sale or lease to medical office tenants. The building will be designed to accommodate up to 300 patients per day.
Ansara said his portion of the project will come to about $250 million, and that doesn’t include the interior buildout of the museum and exhibits.
“We are building the shell and will be the landlord and lease it back to them,” he said. “They will bring their own team of engineers and architects to do the interior and exhibits.”
Ansara’s general contractor, Austin Commercial, will build a replica of the body sculpture that adorns the CORPUS building outside of Amsterdam. He predicted it would become an instant landmark on the tourism corridor.
Ansara said he expects to break ground in March 2024 and should deliver the retail portion first around December. The rest of the project is expected to be complete in 2025.
It’s all part of Phase 1 at Everest Place, which also includes a town center with a 35,000-square-foot restaurant row, a 60,000-square-foot supermarket and the first of two mixed-use apartment buildings.
The first hotel will be the Dubai-based Mysk Hotel and condo towers which will be constructed at the southern portion of the property near Funie Steed Road and operated by Shaza Hotels.
The Mysk will be one of two conservative-lifestyle hotels within the larger resort — a first for the U.S. market. Designed to accommodate observant Muslim travelers but open to people of all faiths, the resort will also include a women’s club with spa services, private pools, a gym, a yoga studio, and a café.
The hotel is scheduled to open in 2026.
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