It is very good news that Rush University Medical Center continues to invest in its satellite Rush Oak Park Hospital. Even better that the latest major expansion of the Rush Oak Park footprint is not actually in Oak Park. Instead, Rush is putting the finishing touches on a from-the-ground-up, 60,000-square-foot outpatient center at the corner of North and Harlem in Chicago’s Galewood neighborhood.
That space will include examination rooms, consultation and procedure spaces and an urgent care facility. Dr. Dino Rumoro, president of Rush Oak Park, says it will also bring a raft of up-to-date medical technology to these communities. And it will have a 200-car surface parking lot.
This investment is aimed at continuing to grow the Rush Oak Park share of medical services provided locally while taking the pressure for physical expansion off of its landlocked campus at Madison and Harlem.
That campus abuts residential neighborhoods on its east and south sides. Tensions between those neighbors and previous hospital administrators have been intense over decades. The village government worked to intervene but mostly gave in to Rush’s plans to incrementally grow its footprint.
Neighbors in Oak Park remain wary with a focus now on getting the village to sign off on height restrictions on the existing campus. That is a project that all sides should work to complete.
Meanwhile, in what we hope is Rush Oak Park’s final land acquisition adjacent to its campus, we cheer its purchase of the longtime currency exchange right on the corner of Madison and Harlem. That site has long been coveted by Rush as a way to open a vista to its campus from both busy streets.