Memorial to construct $60 million physician building

The Memorial Health System board on Wednesday approved construction of a four-story, $60 million medical office building along North First Street.

The structure, to be used exclusively by Springfield Clinic physicians, would give more clinic doctors and patients access to Memorial Medical Center, help the clinic expand and create new areas for women’s health and cancer-treatment services.

“This building allows us to continue to grow in Springfield,” Don Waldrop, chief operating officer of Springfield Clinic, told The State Journal-Register. “The physical structure will allow us to improve our coordination of care.”

The as-yet-unnamed outpatient-care building would be constructed immediately north of Memorial’s Springfield Clinic 1st building, 800 N. First St. The 5.85-acre site now is vacant land and parking areas already owned by Memorial.

The building will include an enclosed pedestrian walkway across Dodge Street to connect the new building with the 1st building. The project also is to include a parking ramp with 590 spaces.

The Springfield Clinic 1st building, which covers 118,000 square feet, was completed in 2006. That building is full, Waldrop said. The new building would total 132,000 square feet.

Scaled back

Memorial officials hope to break ground on the project this spring, but first need a zoning change and variances from the Springfield City Council. The site now has a mixture of office and residential zoning, which needs to be changed so the entire site is zoned for offices, according to Joe Gooden, Springfield zoning administrator.

The Springfield Planning and Zoning Commission is scheduled to make a recommendation on the changes March 21. The city council is expected to vote on the project April 17.

Kevin England, the health system’s vice president for business development, said the project is part of a larger Memorial construction plan that health system officials have “significantly scaled back,” in part because of uncertainty about whether railroad traffic eventually will be moved off the Third Street corridor east of Memorial.

He wouldn’t reveal details of the larger project except to say that it would have been in the area of the Third Street tracks. Memorial favors consolidating rail traffic along the 10th Street corridor, England said.

Springfield Clinic could hire at least 70 more doctors and at least 100 more nurses and other support staff because of the new outpatient treatment space, Waldrop said.

The clinic, which employs 240 doctors and 100 nurse practitioners and physician assistants, has added about 45 doctors in each of the past two years. It continues to grow in part because smaller physician groups in the community have joined the clinic and because demand for specialized medical care in Springfield is increasing, Waldrop said.

The project would create about 1,700 construction jobs, he said.

Space needed

Springfield Clinic would move its chemotherapy infusion services and medical oncologists from its main campus at 1025 S. Sixth St. to the new building’s fourth floor. The new location will be designed to use natural light and be more relaxing for patients undergoing chemotherapy, Waldrop said.

“We don’t have the space right now to provide the ideal healing environment that we would like to,” he said.

General-surgery and colorectal surgeons would be based on the new building’s third floor, moving from the Springfield Clinic 1st building.

The first and second floors of the new building would primarily be devoted to women’s health. Obstetricians-gynecologists would move to those floors from the 1st building and the Springfield Clinic SOGA building at 350 W. Carpenter St.

Other specialists -- including endocrinologists, plastic surgeons and dermatologists –- sometimes would use the first two floors to see patients, but would keep their main offices elsewhere, Waldrop said.

The new building’s proximity to Memorial is expected to boost hospital revenue, England said.

However, Waldrop noted that Springfield Clinic doctors are not required or given incentives to refer patients to any particular hospital.

“The doctors who would be based in the new medical office building use hospital services more frequently than other doctors,” England said.

In addition to the $30 million Springfield Clinic 1st building, Memorial Health System paid $7.6 million to construct an office building for Springfield Clinic doctors next to Abraham Lincoln Memorial Hospital, which opened last year in Lincoln.

Memorial also paid $12 million for another office building for Springfield Clinic doctors that opened in 2009 next to another system hospital, Taylorville Memorial.

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New physician office building

What: Memorial Health System office building to be constructed immediately north of Springfield Clinic 1st, 800 N. First St. Would be rented exclusively to Springfield Clinic doctors for outpatient treatment.

Why: To accommodate expected growth in the number of doctors and other health-care providers employed by Springfield Clinic; improve coordination of care; and provide a better healing environment for chemotherapy patients.

Cost: $60 million, to be paid by Memorial Health System.

When: Construction could begin this spring, with completion by October 2014. Approval from the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board isn’t needed because the new building wouldn’t provide hospital services.

What’s next: An advisory vote at 6 p.m. March 21 by the Springfield Planning and Zoning Commission regarding proposed zoning changes. Springfield City Council expected to vote April 17.

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Memorial to construct $60 million physician building