For years, as debate swirled over what do with the elegant but crumbling Cook County Hospital, Chicago’s real estate developers never have been invited to state their views about the future of the historic structure in a public forum.
But as the Cook County Board prepares for a crucial vote Mondayjune 30–bdk that could decide the fate of the hospital, some developers are suggesting that Cook County Board President John Stroger’s plan to demolish the hospital is short-sighted — and that it could shortchange taxpayers.
The shuttered, Beaux-Arts hospital may be on the equivalent of life support, the developers say, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be resuscitated as medical offices, apartments for those who work in the Illinois Medical District, a patient rehab facility or some combination of those uses.
That could save the county millions of dollars in demolition costs, boost property tax revenues and save a structure preservationists call “Chicago’s Statue of Liberty.”
“Before you sound the death knell of a project, you should examine all avenues,” said Ron Shipka, Jr.ok–bdk, a partner at the Enterprise Companies, which is seeking city approval for its $250 million plan to convert another Near West Side historic property, the old South Water Market, into 850 condominiums.
The developers are the unheard voices in a debate that increasingly hinges on economics. While preservationists wax about how Cook County Hospital opened its doors to generations of immigrants and the poor, County Board members have said they want to know whether the 89-year-old hospital can be renovated or whether it’s a white elephant that should come down.
So the Tribune contacted several developers, including those who specialize in constructing and managing medical buildings, to gauge the pros and cons of redevelopment.
While the developers pointed out that there are pitfalls aplenty, especially the possibility that renovation costs could spiral out of control, they were unequivocal on this point: The recent construction surge on the Near West Side obligates the county, which in 1998 agreed to tear down County Hospital, to take another look at breathing new life into the building.
“Clearly it’s a kinetic marketplace. You never would have said five years ago that this is a good residential play,” said Robert Smietana, president and chief operating officer of HSA Commercial, a Chicago-based developer whose projects include health-care facilities.
“Most real estate experts would consider that prime real estate,” said Fred Campobasso, president of AMDC Corp., a national health-care real estate consulting and development company. “I would say that you’d have to conduct some type of a study to conclude that demolishing it is the only way to go.”
A big issue is whether taxpayers would come out ahead if the county were to sell the building for redevelopment rather than spend an estimated $20 million to $30 million to remove hazardous materials and demolish it.
The debate is expected to come to a head Monday when the County Board votes whether to hold a hearing on the issue. A vote against the hearing would clear the way for the board to advertise for demolition proposals in July.
Stroger adamant
Stroger has insisted there is no need for further discussion because a 1988 study found that it would not be feasible to redevelop County Hospital as a hospital or a medical facility and because the county in 1998 entered into an agreement with the city to tear down the building to create open space in the overcrowded Illinois Medical District.
To underscore his point that demolition is both proper and inevitable, his aides last week handed reporters a demolition plan that identified pieces of the hospital’s grand terra cotta facade — including 4 lions’ heads, 9 arched windows and 18 Ionic columns — that might be sold to architectural salvage companies.
But medical district officials have signaled that they might be open to redevelopment proposals, including those that would address a shortage of office space in the area.
Lawrence Suffredin and other commissioners supporting preservation of the hospital have said it is folly to proceed with demolition on the basis of a study that was conducted 15 years ago — long before the Near West Side became a gentrified area of trendy restaurants and loft apartments with views of the downtown skyline.
The developers contacted by the Tribune said Cook County Hospital’s chief advantage is its location next to the new John Stroger Hospital and near other medical district institutions, including Rush-Presbyterian–St. Luke’s Medical Center.
That proximity would be a boost for developers who sought to address what Tom Livingston, the medical district’s executive director, has called an “undersupply of office space in this area.”
As in any medical complex, doctors want their offices to be close to the hospital so they can easily send patients there for tests and treatment, Smietana said.
Proximity to other hospitals
County Hospital’s proximity to other hospitals in the medical district also makes it a candidate to become a rehab center for patients who need to be transferred from a primary, acute-care hospital to a less expensive, secondary facility in which they could receive additional rehabilitation.
“Regionally, maybe it makes sense for Rush and other hospitals in the area to consider some type of specialty facility,” Campobasso said.
Another selling point is the hospital’s architecture, especially if the building is marketed as housing to people working in the medical district.
The distinctive design, which echoes the Beaux-Arts look of City Hall, could help attract buyers, said Shipka, citing his firm’s decision to redevelop the low-slung, terra cotta-clad buildings in the South Water Market along West 14th Place.
“We are intending to play that up,” he said. “People are living in a part of Chicago history. That is a big selling point.”
But several factors could work against a successful redevelopment of the hospital, the developers said.
One is size. The old hospital has more than 600,000 square feet of space; most hospitals don’t have more than 100,000 square feet of medical office space, said Smietana. As a result, redevelopment almost surely would have to mix uses in order to succeed.
Medical offices also are more expensive than typical offices because they require more plumbing.
“Each [doctor’s] suite needs water and waste for the medical practice. You have very expensive tenant improvements,” Smietana said.
In addition, it isn’t known whether the hospital could accommodate the widths, depths and bay sizes required by medical offices.
If it can’t, that problem — along with mold and hidden structural weaknesses — would drive up costs. “We have done studies [which show] that the cost to retrofit [an] old hospital is more expensive than knocking it down and building something new,” Campobasso said.
Both sides in the dispute can point to evidence supporting their contention that County Hospital should — or should not — be redeveloped.
Success in New York
In New York City, the long-abandoned Morrisania Hospital in the Bronx was reborn in 1997 as a mixed-use project with more than 130 apartments, plus a training center for child-care and catering industry jobs.
But in Kalamazoo, Mich., a developer has abandoned plans to convert an old downtown hospital complex into 120 apartments because the cost of removing asbestos and renovating the aging structure proved too high, according to Bob Doud, a spokesman for the Kalamazoo-based Bronson Healthcare Group. After Bronson built a new hospital in downtown Kalamazoo, much of the complex was empty.
“Now,” Doud said, “that building is being razed.”
