Loyola Medicine’s plans to invest more than $69 million in an ambulatory care center in Tinley Park would result in it shuttering health care operations from a recently expanded campus in Orland Park, according to a state filing.

Plans call for a nearly 72,000-square-foot, two-story building at the southeast corner of La Grange Road and 179th Street, directly west of Moraine Valley Community College’s satellite campus in Tinley Park.

The facility is expected to open sometime in 2023 and offer primary care and specialty care in areas such as orthopedic surgery, oncology, cardiology, pulmonary medicine and urology, according to plans.

In the southwest suburbs, Loyola already has a major presence with a large-scale health care clinic in Orland Park.

An expansion of 83,000 square feet, completed in the summer of 2018, brought more of Loyola’s primary and specialty care physicians to its Loyola Medicine Palos South Campus, southwest of 153rd Street and West Avenue.

In Orland Park, it also established the Loyola Center for Cancer Care & Research.

The expansion by Loyola was to an existing care center in Orland Park, established by Palos Health, operator of Palos Hospital in Palos Heights.

Loyola and Palos had explored a merger in 2019, signing a nonbinding agreement in January of that year but just a few months later ended talks without explanation.

As of this past Jan. 1, Palos Health came under the umbrella of Northwestern Medicine.

In an Oct. 4 filing with the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board, which needs to sign off on Loyola’s Tinley Park project, Loyola said it is leasing a bit more than 21,000 square feet at the Orland Park site, and that lease will end as of April 1, 2022.

The cutting of ties at the Palos South site, which is a bit more than 4 miles north of the proposed Tinley Park center, is due to the partnership between Palos Health and Northwestern, Loyola said in the state filing. Loyola said it will

cease operations at the Palos South site April 1.

Loyola also operates an outpatient clinic at 16621 S. 107th Court in Orland Park. It has been closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic but is due to reopen in January and remain in operation until the new Tinley Park center is complete, Loyola says in the filing.

That smaller clinic will close once the new care center is in operation, Loyola told state regulators.

The Tinley Park project is under review by the village’s Plan Commission, with a public hearing and vote by the panel to recommend approval to the Village Board scheduled for Oct. 21. Plans reviewed by the Plan Commission call for 50 examination rooms and eight procedure rooms, although no inpatient rooms are proposed.

According to Loyola, the building will also include an imaging center with an X-ray suite, laboratory, pharmacy and a cancer care center. Loyola also plans to offer urgent care services, and anticipated operating hours would be from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekdays and from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekends.

Loyola said the center could see an estimated 1,500 patients each week, and employ about 130 people.

About 50 doctors who now operate from the Palos South campus will relocate to the Tinley Park facility, according to Loyola.

The state hospital board is scheduled to hear Loyola’s request for the Tinley Park center at its Jan. 25 meeting.

In its filing, Loyola estimates construction costs of about $33 million plus another $21 million to equip the new building.

“The opening of the new location will allow Loyola Medicine to expand its reach to patients in the southwest suburbs and further our mission of being a compassionate and transforming healing presence within our communities,” Shawn Vincent, Loyola Medicine’s president and chief executive officer, said in a statement Tuesday.

Loyola is part of Trinity Health, one of the nation’s largest Catholic hospital systems.

The Tinley Park property Loyola is proposing to build on is nearly 26 acres, although the ambulatory care center would occupy a small portion of the site, with the rest reserved for future development.

Loyola’s building would face La Grange Road, with limited access off 179th Street as well as access and parking off Chopin Drive, a north-south street that separates Loyola’s property from Moraine Valley.

mnolan@tribpub.com