Historic Cook County Hospital To Be Rehabbed As Hotel, Homes And Shops
By Mae Rice in News on Apr 6, 2016 6:33PM
The Cook County Hospital building, a century-old structure in the Medical District, is listed in the National Register of Historic Places—but it's been vacant since 2002, and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle described its current state as "derelict" to the Tribune. Preckwinkle is expected to announce plans Wednesday to rehab the structure, returning it to usefulness while restoring the building's historic Beaux Arts facade.
The rehab, slated to be finished by 2018, would transform the empty hospital into a complex that includes a hotel with 250 rooms, up to 150 apartments, and retail shops, the Tribune reports. (Twenty percent of the apartments would be rented out at affordable rates.) Developers would restore the hospital's facade, as well as elements of the interior.
Once developers have rehabbed the hospital, they'll move onto an overhaul of the rest of the 16-acre plot the hospital sits on, which could take 15 years to complete. Later phases of the redevelopment will include construction of a new building, with a clinic and administrative offices, in the southwest corner of the Stroger Hospital site. Developers would also demolish the Fantus Health Center and the Hektoen Institute; tenants in those buildings would be moved elsewhere.
The entire, expansive project will be privately funded. The development team selected by the county, led by MB Real Estate, would raise $550 to $700 million for the project themselves, while leasing the land from the county for a steadily increasing rate, starting at $2 million a year. (The development team will also include famed local architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.)
For a sense of what the finished product would look like, check out this rendering of the future Medical District from above.
A rendering of the planned overhaul of the Cook County Hospital and its surrounding area (Cook County)