Cook County Hospital starts work on redesigned outpatient center

After landing its first construction permit, the new Cook County Central Campus Health Center is ready to rise in the heart of the Illinois Medical District. Located at 1950 W. Polk next to the John H. Stroger in-patient facility at the former site of the Fantus Clinic, the $109 million building comes from developer Clayco and the design architects at Gensler.

While earlier images of the project showed a facade partially clad in glass fiber reinforced concrete panels in a geometric arrangement reminiscent of Studio Gang’s new U of C dorms, renderings appearing on the developer’s website now show a more conservative—and likely less expensive—glass curtain wall system.

Clayco

The Central Campus Health Center is far from the only development slated for the Cook County Hospital campus. Last spring, the county showed an ambitious multi-phase plan to revitalize a large portion of hospital-owned real estate into new office, retail, and residential uses to stakeholders.

The redevelopment will mainly be focused on the area surrounding the abandoned 103-year-old Beaux Arts main building located northeast of Clayco’s new building and is expected to take 10 to 15 years to fully implement. The Central Campus Health Center, on the other hand, is targeting a completion date in the third quarter of 2018.

Cook County

• New construction permit at 1950 W. Polk St in Chicago [Chicago Cityscape]
• Glassy new Gensler-designed facility planned for Illinois Medical District [Curbed Chicago]
• Cook County Central Campus Health Center [Clayco]