Central DuPage Hospital expansion gets Winfield's OK

The Winfield village board approved plans Thursday to have Central DuPage Hospital build a 202-bed wing on its sprawling campus.

The five-story, 325,000-square-foot addition, which hospital officials first unveiled in May 2007, will contain all private quarters and will replace two wings built in the 1970s that had mostly double-occupancy rooms.

Larry Bell, director of construction for Central DuPage, said the hospital expects to break ground on the new bed tower in May 2009, and the project should be completed within three years.

The $257 million expansion project will be financed by a combination of bonds and nearly $82 million in cash and securities.

Despite concerns about the project's size and scope, the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board, the state agency which regulates hospital construction, approved the hospital's plans last fall.

A new parking deck, planned in conjunction with the new bed tower, is under construction along Winfield Road, just north of Highlake Road.

The hospital recently completed a four-year, $194 million modernization plan that centralized its maternity and pediatrics care programs under one roof and added space for doctor offices and outpatient care.

The Winfield hospital is expected to come before the state health agency again next week to appeal that board's decision to deny the hospital's plans to construct a proton therapy cancer treatment center in Warrenville.

Northern Illinois University received state approval in February to build a similar cancer center in the DuPage National Technology Park in West Chicago. State regulators argued the two centers were too close in proximity to warrant approval of the Central DuPage Hospital site.

Only five such facilities, which use proton beams rather than standard radiation to treat a variety of cancers, exist in the country.