Joliet veterans clinic on pace for 2013 grand opening

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The Silver Cross Hospital on Joliet's East Side will be used for a veteran's clinic beginning in 2013. Silver Cross is opening a new medical center campus on Route 6 in New Lenox in 2012. File photo | Sun-Times Media

Updated: January 6, 2012 8:10AM

JOLIET — A veterans clinic at Silver Cross Hospital’s Joliet campus remains on schedule for an early 2013 opening, a hospital executive told city officials last week.

Ruth Colby, chief strategy officer at Silver Cross, reported on the project’s progress to the Joliet City Council’s Land Use Committee.

The government deal to acquire the hospital’s emergency department in Joliet is expected to be completed in March, and reconstruction of the facility will begin soon after, Colby said.

Veterans Affairs will take over the emergency department, using 60,000 square feet to open a mega-clinic that would provide primary care, physical therapy and several other health services.

The project became official in August and followed several years of efforts by veterans groups, local members of congress, and others to expand health services for veterans in Will County.

The project is being greeted with enthusiasm by Joliet city officials, who appealed to state regulators in 2008 in an unsuccessful attempt to block Silver Cross from moving to New Lenox.

Colby pointed out that the veterans facility will not be a hospital. But it will provide a wide variety of services and is expected to save many veterans the drive they now make to Hines Veterans Hospital.

“It’s a long time coming,” said Councilwoman Susie Barber, whose District 4 includes the Silver Cross campus.

Veterans Affairs is not taking the entire hospital building, however. Silver Cross officials will be filing plans to subdivide the hospital building in a way that separates the Veterans Affairs’ piece of the property from the remainder of the facility.

City Manager Thomas Thanas said the subdivision plan will be put on a fast track to expedite the project.