Scheduled to begin in the spring, the project will add 114 new patient rooms to an existing two-story section of the Springfield hospital and eventually convert the entire facility to private rooms by January 2016. Other upgrades include adding six new operating rooms and renovating perioperative and surgery services, developing a new main entrance place and updating the main lobby, and modernizing the hospital utilities infrastructure.

“This project will position Memorial to provide for our community’s well being for many decades to come,” said Ed Curtis, president and chief executive officer for Memorial Health System. “These additions to our hospital will increase privacy, comfort and safety for our patients and improve the setting we provide for family members and others who visit our hospital every day.”

The project will be completed in three phases. Target completion dates are December 2014 for the first phase of the surgery expansion and main lobby renovation, May 2015 for the second phase of the surgery renovation and January 2016 for the new private patient rooms and main entrance upgrade.

The hospital is also building the Memorial Center for Learning and Innovation, which did not need approval from the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board. The three-story, 50,000-square-foot learning center will feature a large conference room for conferences, professional classes of up to 300 people and Memorial-sponsored health education events. A clinical simulation center and surgical-skills laboratory will also be included, featuring hands-on training and patient care education in simulated clinical settings.

The medical center expansion is expected to add 100 permanent jobs to the hospital’s staff of 4,276 people, and about 400 construction jobs will be created during the almost-three-year period.

A rendering of the expansion project was designed by BSA Life Structures, a Chicago-based architectural and engineering firm, and released to the public in December. No other information regarding the construction team was determined as of press time.

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