CHICAGO — In a surprise move, a state health-care planning board on Tuesday unanimously approved a proposed 75-bed nursing home on Springfield’s west side.
Supporters of the $12.9 million Springfield Nursing and Rehabilitation Center still need to obtain zoning approval from the Springfield City Council before the facility can be built at 3089 Old Jacksonville Road. But the decision by the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board, which was meeting in Chicago, meant that the venture cleared a major hurdle.
The vote surprised and relieved Charles Foley, a consultant who was working with the Skokie-based investors behind the project.
“Don’t ask me how it happened, but it happened,” Foley said after the 4-0 vote. “I think we finally were able to convince the board that there is a demand and a need for more beds in Sangamon County.”
The proposed skilled-care nursing home was scheduled for a vote at the March meeting of the board, but Foley withdrew the request when a similar proposal — to build a nursing home next to Springfield’s Concordia Village independent-living complex — was rejected at the same meeting. Foley also was a consultant to Concordia officials.
In the March decision, the board acknowledged that there is a shortage of nursing home beds in the multi-county area that includes Springfield. However, two of the board members who voted against the Concordia project were concerned that several nursing homes in Sangamon County have vacant beds.
Since then, Foley said, board members apparently gave more consideration to his arguments — that several of the underutilized nursing homes cited by the board don’t accept Medicaid patients and don’t provide the intensity of nursing care that Springfield Nursing and Rehab would provide.
“The staff of the board did a tremendous job in their research,” Foley said. “This facility is going to create a substantial number of jobs. And it’s going to partially eliminate the problem of residents having to travel out of town for nursing services.”
Foley, said he might ask the board to reconsider the Concordia Village request in July. That proposal would establish a 64-bed, $9.9 million facility at 4101 W. Iles Ave. It would admit a limited number of Medicaid patients.
The businessmen proposing to build Springfield Nursing and Rehabilitation Center — Benjamin Klein, Brian Levinson and Mark Shapiro — also are involved in Platinum Healthcare, the company that operates Springfield’s largest nursing home, Capitol Care Center, 555 W. Carpenter St.
The group projects that 60 percent of Springfield Nursing and Rebab’s revenues would come from serving patients insured by Medicare, and 40 percent would come from serving low-income patients covered by Medicaid.
Springfield Nursing and Rehabilitation would open in 2011 if it receives zoning approval.
Dean Olsen can be reached at 788-1543.