Cook County Central Campus Health Center

Photo Credit: © Tom Harris | Design by Gensler

This new beacon of healthcare services provides state-of-the art medical oncology, infusion, dental, general medicine, oral health, dermatology, ophthalmology and other specialty outpatient services to the residents of Cook County and the surrounding areas. The nine-story, 282,000 square foot Central Campus Health Center replaces the aging and outdated Fantus Clinic while connecting and expanding ambulatory services to the adjacent John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital at multiple levels. The state-of-the-art facility represents Cook County Health’s future as a modern, integrated health system and provides preventive, primary and outpatient specialty care services to the local community, working to reduce the prevalence of serious chronic conditions and the need for hospital care.

The new Center had a tremendous effect on the local community throughout the life of the project. Over 62% of the project workforce were Cook County residents and students from Richard T. Crane Medical Preparatory Magnet High School created the first-floor mural greeting visitors.

Early Collaboration was Key

While Clayco has been successfully using progressive design-build for years, the stakeholders at Cook County had less experience in this design-build approach. To ensure success, the team underwent careful and considered programming with all hospital departments to fully understand their individual needs. They worked to ensure the correct resources were aligned, collaborating closely with the Owner on design alternatives along a parallel path. This level of collaboration was able to keep the project moving, while ensuring the Owner felt comfortable in all the decisions as they were being made. Cook County says, “Not only was the County fully engaged through every step of the programming, design and build processes, we believe the design-build structure was critical in keeping us on schedule and on budget.”

Design-Build Team