* MORE PHOTOS: St. John's Hospital
St. John’s Hospital wants to build a new area for inpatient surgery and renovate four patient floors as part of a $162 million proposal that would be the largest construction project in the hospital’s 135-year history.
St. John’s last week filed initial documents with the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board outlining improvements that would cover an area larger than six football fields on the hospital campus near downtown.
“It’s very important to re-invest in our infrastructure and our facilities,” St. John’s chief executive officer Bob Ritz told The State Journal-Register. “It’s good for the community, and it’s good for St. John’s because it allows us to continue what we have referred to as our journey to excellence.”
St. John’s hopes to satisfy a growing demand for surgery, provide more efficient care and accommodate sophisticated equipment now and in the future, Ritz said.
St. John’s would tear down three existing two- and four-story buildings — one built in 1914 — and consolidate most of the hospital’s inpatient surgery services on the third floor of a new four-story, $120 million building. The new building would extend north, over Mason Street, and connect St. John’s Pavilion building with the main patient tower.
The building, targeted for completion in summer 2013, would create 16 new surgery rooms and give St. John’s more options for adding technology, chief operating officer Dave Olejniczak said.
Design for ‘2025 and 2030’
“The whole concept of this is not to design it for 2013 or 2014, but to anticipate what we need five years from then and in 2025 and 2030,” he said.
St. John’s at one time considered tearing down its 13-story patient-care tower — sections of which opened in 1939 and in the mid-1970s — but decided against it because the building is structurally sound and an integral part of hospital’s overall design, Ritz said.
Instead, St. John’s plans to spend at least $42 million to renovate floors six through nine, outfitting the areas with all-private patient rooms and creating more efficient clusters of rooms for patients with similar needs.
The project also would create a new area where St. John’s might later move its emergency department, although a new ER isn’t part of this proposal.
An outdoor healing garden with fountains would be constructed on the east side of the Pavilion building as part of the project. That would be a step toward eventually establishing a new main entrance to the hospital off Madison Street. The current main entrance faces Carpenter Street.
With borrowing costs included, the project’s expense would approach $170 million, chief financial officer Larry Ragel said.
While the construction would boost the building trades, it wouldn’t involve adding more jobs at St. John’s, officials said.
Big investment
More than $100 million to pay for the work has been or will be borrowed. St. John’s would pay for the rest with savings, investment income and future revenues, Ritz said.
“We haven’t made a big investment like this for a long time,” he said, referring to the 1997 opening of the Carol Jo Vecchie Women & Children’s Center and the 1998 opening of Prairie Heart Institute. Those buildings cost $36 million and $33 million, respectively.
Surgery can make money for hospitals and offset other services that lose money. Ritz said the surgical improvements will help ensure the future health of St. John’s, a not-for-profit Catholic institution that employs about 3,100 people and covers more than nine city blocks.
The hospital has posted several money-losing years recently, including a $13 million loss in fiscal 2009 based on $397 million in net revenues.
Ritz, who became St. John’s CEO in 2008, said St. John’s is on track to lose money on operations but break even overall this year, then break even on operations next year and start posting positive operating margins after that.
“We’ve been implementing this plan, and obviously this project is a big part of that,” he said.
Dean Olsen can be reached at 788-1543.
On the Web
To download the St. John’s Hospital project application, go to: http://www.hfsrb.illinois.gov/Apps/2010-03-29%20%2010-019%20%20CON%20APP.pdf.
Timeline
*The Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board board received a request this week for a certificate of need from St. John’s Hospital for its proposed surgical project. The hospital plans to submit a second CON request next month; that proposal would focus on a proposal to renovate four floors in the hospital’s main patient-care tower.
*The board could vote on the first CON request at its July 27-28 meeting in Chicago. St. John’s officials hope the second CON request also can be considered this summer.
*Demolition of several buildings could begin in December 2010. The surgery project could be finished in summer 2013 and the renovations in spring 2014.
What the project would include
*Gutting and renovating floors six through nine in the main patient-care tower.
*Tearing down three buildings and replacing them with a building that would begin at the St. John’s Pavilion, extend over Mason Street and connect with the west side of the patient-care tower.
*The surgical building would house a sterile instrument-processing area and satellite pharmacy on the lower level; space for a new emergency department on the ground level; air-handling equipment on the second floor; 16 operating rooms, related support services and family waiting areas on the third floor; and offices on the fourth floor.
*A distinctive design element on St. John’s Hospital’s current campus — white sandstone at ground level and yellow brick above that — is to be incorporated in the new construction.
