Springfield Clinic, Memorial break ground for $60 million project

Representatives of Springfield Clinic and Memorial Medical Center, along with local officials, broke ground Friday for Springfield Clinic 1st North, a medical office building to be built north of Dodge Street and between First and Second streets.

The $60.5 million, four-story building being developed on more than four acres of Memorials campus will connect to a new, 600-vehicle parking garage to be constructed on its north side. Patients will have walk-in access to physicians offices from each level of the garage. An overhead walkway crossing Dodge Street east of First Street will connect the new medical office building with the existing Springfield Clinic 1st facility.

The project was approved in February by the Memorial Health System board.

Kevin England, the health systems vice president for business development, said then the new building is part of a larger Memorial construction plan thats been significantly scaled back, in part because of uncertainty about whether railroad traffic eventually will be moved off the Third Street corridor east of Memorial.

Memorial favors consolidating rail traffic along the 10th Street corridor, England said.

Springfield Clinic has estimated it could hire at least 70 more doctors and at least 100 more nurses and other support staff because of the new outpatient treatment space.

The project also will create 1,700 construction jobs.

Springfield Clinic will move its chemotherapy infusion services and medical oncologists from its main campus at 1025 S. Sixth St. to the new buildings fourth floor. General-surgery and colorectal surgeons will be based on the new buildings third floor, moving from the Springfield Clinic 1st building.

The first and second floors of the new building will primarily be devoted to womens health. Obstetricians-gynecologists will move to those floors from the 1st building and the Springfield Clinic SOGA building at 350 W. Carpenter St.

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Springfield Clinic, Memorial break ground for $60 million project