Bayflite One Heliport

Corporate Restructuring and Change of Service Provider. The heliport was a base for the Bayflite Aeromedical Program, which was operated in-house by Bayfront Health St. Petersburg. In 2015, Bayfront's new parent company, Community Health Systems (CHS), made a strategic decision to discontinue the hospital-based Bayflite program and outsource all air-medical services to a third-party national provider, Air Methods. This corporate shift made the dedicated Bayflite bases, including the Odessa location, redundant and led to their closure.

The site is abandoned. The physical infrastructure, including the circular concrete helipad and the adjacent building that served as the crew quarters and hangar, remains on the property but is vacant and unused. The location is adjacent to the Medical Center of Trinity, off the Suncoast Parkway.

The Bayflite One Heliport was a crucial operational base for the highly respected Bayflite program, one of Florida's first hospital-based air ambulance services, established in 1986. This specific base housed a medical helicopter (typically a BK117), a dedicated flight crew (pilot, flight nurse, flight paramedic), and support facilities. Its primary mission was to provide rapid helicopter emergency medical services (HEMS) for critically ill and injured patients. It served a vital role in the emergency response network for Pasco County and the northern parts of Pinellas and Hillsborough counties, swiftly transporting patients from accident scenes or transferring them from smaller hospitals to major trauma centers like Bayfront Health St. Petersburg.

None known. The closure was part of a permanent dissolution of the Bayflite program. The region's air-medical services are now provided by Air Methods, which operates its own network of community-based heliports. There are no publicly available plans or prospects for this specific heliport to be reactivated.