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Race is on to build new Edgerton Hospital

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A 70,000- to 80,000-square-foot hospital, along with a smaller medical office building, will sit on 70 acres at Highway 59 and Sherman Road, Edgerton. Edgerton Hospital and Health Services showed plans for the facility to the public Tuesday.

EDGERTON — Edgerton Hospital planners are racing to start work on a new facility before the ground freezes.

"It's taken us a while to get there, but now we are moving fast," said Jim Schultz, Edgerton Hospital and Health Services Foundation chairman.

So fast, in fact, that construction of a new hospital could be underway in a few weeks. Hospital officials said construction will begin in early October if federal financing comes through as expected.

The Edgerton Planning Commission approved a site plan for the facility Monday.

The hospital has applied to a loan program for critical-access hospitals through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. If the project is approved, HUD will guarantee loans made by private lenders for $25.9 million, the full cost of the hospital.

HUD must issue its decision by Sept. 30 for this fiscal year, said Adam Jelen, project manager for Gilbane Building Company.

Gilbane was hired in Nov. 2006 as construction manager on the project.

Federal officials visited the site for the new hospital on Highway 59 and Sherman Road last week and liked what they saw, hospital officials said.

"It looks very, very good," CEO Jim Pernau said.

Financing is the last major piece of the puzzle for a project that was announced in April 2005. Officials at what was then Edgerton Memorial Community Hospital said the facility at 313 Stoughton Road—parts of which are more than 80 years old—no longer met the community's needs

The hospital bought 69.2 acres of farmland near Newville in 2006. It hoped to start construction in 2007, but construction stalled for financing and planning delays common to large building projects, Pernau said in an earlier interview.

Plans call for a 56,000-square-foot hospital with 25 beds and an adjacent, 10,000-square-foot medical office building. An independent firm will build the office building, and SSM Health Care, owner of the Dean Edgerton Clinic, will be the primary renter, Pernau said.

Edgerton Hospital and SSM announced a limited affiliation in December.

Organizers describe the entire project as a "healthy village" and hope eventually to have other health and wellness facilities on the campus.

Edgerton Care Center, which split from the hospital in 2008, plans to build a skilled nursing and assisted living home there.

The hospital foundation has raised $1.7 million in donations for the healthy village project, Schultz said.

"We'll even be more active once the shovel goes in the ground," he said.

If all goes as planned, the hospital should be open in spring 2011, Jelen said.

"It's a very aggressive timeline, but the team is working well together," he said.