Good Samaritan Hospital announces $78 million addition

Announcement made at annual EDC luncheon

Published: Tuesday, July 2, 2014 11:55 a.m. CDT

By ED MCMENAMIN – emcmenamin@shawmedia.com

DOWNERS GROVE – Advocate Health Care plans to build a $78 million expansion of its Good Samaritan Hospital in Downers Grove later this year, hospital president Dave Fox announced Thursday at the Downers Grove Economic Development Corporation’s annual luncheon.
Good Samaritan’s parent company, Advocate Healthcare, also received one of three 2014 Cornerstone Awards given at the luncheon to businesses that completed impactful economic development projects in Downers Grove in the last year.

About a year ago, Advocate moved its corporate headquarters and 600 employees to its new 140,000 square-foot office in Downers Grove.
The other two Cornerstone Awards were given to the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, which recently opened its $20 million, 42,000 square-foot headquarters; and to Danish water pump manufacturer Grundfos, which recently opened its 11,000-square-foot North American headquarters in Downers Grove.
“You’ll notice that this year’s awards have a theme, and that is that Downers Grove is one of the premier communities for corporate headquarter projects in the Chicago region,” Downers Grove Mayor Martin Tully said while presenting the awards.
Fox described the new Good Samaritan project while introducing the event’s keynote speaker, Dan Seals, the assistant director of the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.
Construction of the three-floor private patient room bed tower is proposed to begin in late 2014.
The new bed tower is proposed to be built above the existing critical care pavilion on the north end of the hospital campus on Highland Avenue. It would contain 96 rooms, Fox said.
Upon completion in late 2016 or early 2017, all of Good Samaritan Hospital’s existing semi-private rooms will be converted into private rooms, resulting in an all private-room campus.
“An all private room hospital is really what the community … expects in DuPage county,” Fox said at the luncheon. “So we’re excited about that.”
Preceding the awards, Downers Grove Economic Development Corporation President and CEO Michael Cassa provided a long run-down of recent or upcoming additions to the Downers Grove business landscape, including the new Starbucks on Ogden Avenue, and Sanford’s move to office space in the Esplanade II office building at 3500 Lacey Road.
Sanford makes Sharpie markers, among other products. Other new and future additions include the Art Van furniture store on Butterfield Road; CompuSystems, which plans to move its headquarters from Broadview to Warrenville Road; Fresh Thyme Farmers markets, which is planning a store for 321 Ogden Ave.; and Angelo Caputo’s Fresh market, which opened Friday at 42 Ogden Ave.