Lurie Children’s Hospital is in the early stages of planning a new children’s hospital in the Downers Grove area, Lurie announced Wednesday.

The new hospital would be the system’s first hospital with inpatient beds outside of its main facility in downtown Chicago. The plan follows years of closures of pediatric units at community hospitals across Illinois.

The new hospital would likely have about 40 to 50 inpatient beds, an emergency department with about 40 rooms, surgery suites and offer subspecialties such as oncology, cardiology, gastroenterology and orthopedics, said Dr. Tom Shanley, Lurie president and CEO.

The facility would be low-acuity, meaning that it would be intended for children who don’t necessarily need the highest, most complex level of care, which is provided at Lurie’s downtown hospital. For example, children who are hospitalized for respiratory illnesses sometimes need little more than extra oxygen, which is a service that can be provided at a lower-acuity hospital, Shanley said.

“It affords us an opportunity to develop inpatient beds and keep children closer to home for the care that they need,” Shanley said, adding that the region also does not have a dedicated emergency department for kids. “This gives us an opportunity to meet what we think is a substantial need for patients in the region.”

Lurie has not yet submitted an application to the state Health Facilities and Services Review Board for the new hospital, which must approve of the plans in order for them to move forward. If the board approves of the new hospital, it could open in late 2028 or early 2029, Shanley said. The hospital has not yet said what the project might cost or specifically where the new facility might be located.

Lurie already has an outpatient center in Westchester, and much of what’s done there would likely move to the new hospital, Shanley said. Lurie is still determining whether some services would continue to be offered at the Westchester site, he said.

According to Lurie, about 47% of children in the western suburbs now leave their communities if they need overnight hospital care.

“This new facility represents a significant and needed investment in local health infrastructure and pediatric health,” said Downers Grove Mayor Bob Barnett in a Lurie news release.

In recent years, a number of community hospitals across Illinois have closed their pediatric units, as more procedures can now be done without an overnight stay and amid competition from larger children’s hospitals such as Lurie, Advocate Children’s Hospital and UChicago Medicine Comer Children’s Hospital, which are often top choices for families seeking complex pediatric care.

More than 20 community hospitals in the Chicago area have closed their pediatric units since 2012, according to a previous application for changes filed with the state board by Lurie. In closing those units, community hospitals often cite low numbers of pediatric patients.

Shanley said it can be difficult for smaller, community hospitals to keep up their quality of care and hire enough people for pediatric units if not many kids are visiting. He believes Lurie’s new hospital, however, would attract more pediatric patients from across the area.

The plan to open a new hospital is also part of Lurie’s ongoing efforts to expand as a health system. Lurie recently opened a 75,000-square-foot outpatient center in Schaumburg, which is now one of more than 20 Lurie outpatient centers across the Chicago area. Lurie has also partnered with 10 Chicago area hospitals and plans to open a community health center in Chicago’s Austin neighborhood in the fall.

Many Chicago area health systems have been expanding in recent years, mostly by building new outpatient facilities and by acquiring hospitals owned by other systems.

In an interview with the Tribune, Shanley didn’t rule out of the possibilty of opening more pediatric hospitals in Chicago in the future.

“Lurie Children’s has been around for 140-plus years and I believe it needs to be around in Chicago and Illinois for another 140 years,” Shanley said. “We need to ensure as an independent children’s hospital we design a strategic growth strategy that allows us to be around for that long, and, if in doing so, that dictates the opportunity to continue to have facility expansion then we’ll look at those opportunities, but right now this will be the initial priority for our overall longterm growth plan.”

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