CDH proposes $14.2 million expansion of Winfield campus

Central DuPage Hospital is hoping to pursue a $14.2 million plan to modernize its pediatrics unit and neonatal intensive care unit.

The Winfield-based hospital earlier this month submitted an application for expansion with the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board. The application is scheduled to be reviewed by the panel in December.

If approved by the facilities and services review board, officials with Cadence Health — CDH's parent company — say the expansion would enhance the hospital's affiliation with the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago.

Cadence spokesman Christopher King said the project also would “expand our depth and breadth of specialty care offered in the Western suburbs.”

“Through our affiliation with Lurie Children's, we've been able to provide a comprehensive range of nationally recognized specialty care with convenient access to more than 100 Lurie Children's specialists,” King said.

According to the application, the pediatrics unit would be relocated from the first floor to the fourth floor of the Women and Children's building on the CDH campus along Winfield Road. Twelve more pediatrics beds would be added to the hospital.

In addition, the project would expand the NICU unit on the first floor by adding six beds and reconfigure support spaces. “It's existing space that we're going to rehab and refinish,” King said.

Construction would be done in two phases, with the build-out of the pediatrics unit happening first. Once the pediatrics unit is moved to the fourth floor, its former space on the first floor would be used for the modernization and expansion of the NICU unit, according to the application.

Depending on if and when the plan is approved, King said construction could begin in the spring. The project would run until spring 2016, he said.