Loyola Medicine plans for two new buildings, at cost of $426 million, as part of larger effort

Loyola Medicine plans to construct two new buildings at a cost of $426 million — part of a broader plan to modernize its facilities and expand geographically.

On its main campus in Maywood, the health system hopes to build a $306 million, seven-story, 242,608-square-foot building to house administrative and support services, according to an application Loyola Medicine filed with the state Health Facilities and Services Review Board.

Though the facility would not include any areas for treating patients, part of its purpose would be to relocate support and administrative workers to help free up space for a potential new inpatient tower on the campus that would include a new emergency department, according to the health system.

“This would allow us to have the ability in the future to be able to really modernize our overall inpatient facility,” said Shawn Vincent, president and CEO of Loyola Medicine and Trinity Health Illinois/Indiana Region.

“We do know we have an aging inpatient facility and it’s going to require modernization and changes,” Vincent said. “We know that our emergency department is roughly, probably half the size that it should be to meet the ongoing needs of the community we serve.”

He said he could not yet provide a timeline or other details about the potential new inpatient tower.

The health system would ultimately get feedback from community members, providers and patients on what a potential tower might include, “but we’re not there yet,” Vincent said.

Construction on the support services building could begin this year, the system said, if the project gains approval from the Health Facilities and Services Review Board.

The health system also announced plans this week to build a $120 million outpatient care center in West suburban Warrenville. The three-story, roughly 100,000-square-foot building would offer primary and specialty care, and could break ground in early 2027, if it gains state approval.

Once built, it would be one of the largest outpatient facilities within the Loyola Medicine system, which includes the flagship hospital in Maywood as well as Gottlieb Memorial Hospital in Melrose Park and MacNeal Hospital in Berwyn.

Loyola already has many patients in the Warrenville and surrounding areas who now travel to other locations in the system for care, according to the system’s application to the Health Facility and Services Review Board to build the facility.

“Patients increasingly prefer much more convenient care, local access to where they live and/or work and most patients certainly prefer to go to an ambulatory site to receive care versus going to a main hospital campus,” Vincent said.

Expanding outpatient care also allows the system to treat more people in those settings, leaving more space in the hospitals for patients with the most severe health issues, he said.

Loyola Medicine now has more than 160 intensive care unit beds across its system, and they are largely full every day, Vincent said.

“The people that are hospitalized are sicker … than they have ever been and our ability to be able to have the infrastructure to support that level of acuity becomes more and more important,” Vincent said.

He said continuing to expand into more geographic areas is also part of Loyola’s plan, but he declined to give details. Loyola Medicine is part of Trinity Health, one of the nation’s largest nonprofit, faith-based hospital systems. Trinity Health would fund construction of the facilities, according to Loyola Medicine.

The move to build an outpatient facility in Warrenville is part of a larger trend in healthcare.

Many Chicago-area hospital systems have been growing their outpatient offerings, as an increasing number of procedures no longer require a hospital stay. Illinois health systems have also been working to expand their geographic reach by building new facilities and, in some cases, through mergers and acquisitions.

In recent years, Rush University System for Health and UI Health opened large outpatient buildings on their West Side campuses.

Lurie Children’s Hospital has also opened a number of outpatient locations throughout the Chicago area, and hopes to build a new children’s hospital in Downers Grove.

Rush University System for Health and Endeavor Health recently announced plans to merge, a union that would extend the geographic reach of both those systems.