Central DuPage Hospital planning a second cancer center in Warrenville

Central DuPage Hospital is expected to submit plans for yet another cancer center in Warrenville's Cantera development.

Central DuPage CEO Luke McGuinness informed the state's Health Facilities Planning Board in a March 3 letter of the Winfield hospital's plans to build a $38 million, 48,000-square-foot cancer and diagnostic imaging center near Mill Road and I-88.

Among the services McGuinness said the hospital hopes to provide at the new center are "medical oncology, infusion therapy and radiation therapy in the cancer center and several radiology modalities in the diagnostic imaging center."

Assuming the state board approves the plan, McGuinness said Central DuPage hopes to start construction by December.

The second cancer center would be located on the same 10-acre tract on which hospital officials are hoping to get state approval to build a proton therapy cancer center, said Jim Spear, vice president of Central DuPage.

The Winfield hospital is hoping to build a $140 million proton center that could be used to treat, at its peak, up to 1,500 patients a year.

Last month, the state's health planning board gave Northern Illinois University permission to be the first agency in the state to build a proton therapy treatment center. That facility will be constructed at the DuPage National Technology Park in West Chicago.

Both NIU and Central DuPage had been rushing to be the first to get state approval to build similar centers in the Western suburbs.

Spear said the second cancer diagnostic center isn't expected to be a backup plan in case state regulators reject efforts by Central DuPage to build a second proton therapy site.

"If you think about what we do in cancer (treatment) today, this is just moving part of what we do to that (planned) building," Spear said. "We're making our facilities state-of-the-art."

Should the state planning board approve both the proton therapy and cancer imaging projects, Spear said both buildings would operate as separate stand-alone facilities.

Hospital officials still are working out details as far as which aspects of the hospital's cancer program would move to Warrenville, Spear said.

The Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board is expected to vote on the Central DuPage proton therapy project during its meeting next month in Springfield.

The hospital is expected to submit plans to the state agency on the cancer and diagnostic imaging center sometime in early May.