Construction begins on Yorkville Clinic

-Copley Healthcare: $23 million center breaks ground for spring 2008 opening
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By Heather Gillers

            YORKVILLE – Sounds of tractors mixed with the patters of applause as local officials and business leaders celebrated the beginning of construction Friday on a walk-in clinic for Kendall County.
          

“Now if you’ve got urgent (health problems), you’ve got to drive to Dreyer (Medical Clinic in Aurora), said Alderman Marty Munns, whose ward includes the site. “If your kids get cut, if they fall and hit their heads, you don’t want to drive a half-hour away.”

            The $23 million Rush-Copley Healthcare Center is expected to open its doors in spring 2008 at 1100 W. Veterans Parkway (Route 34).

            The walk-in clinic will provide immediate care without an appointment, but is not an emergency room.

            The 55,000 square foot building will include doctors’ offices and a range of diagnostic services, including cardiac imaging, mammograms, MRIs and CT scans. It will offer a conference center for community health planning.

            In addition, Rush-Copley plans to seek approval to at an 8,900-square foot surgery center.
            State Rep. Pat Lindner, R-Sugar Grove, who once sat through and uncomfortable long car ride to the doctor after a dog bite in Plano, called the Rush-Copley facility a “wonderful” addition that will help health-care services keep pace with the area’s exploding population.

            Yorkville Economic Development Corporation Director Lynn Dubajic called it a “key component of the overall quality of life in the region.”

            Aurora based Rush-Copley is on e of several area health-care providers seeking to expand services in the nation’s second-fasted-growing county.

            Rush-Copley’s 45-acre Yorkville parcel is big enough to accommodate a hospital, but any plan to build one hinges on a determination by the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board that the area needs such a facility. That decision is based on population and proximity to other hospitals, among other factors.

            “We know that we want to develop this into a multi-use campus,” said Vice President of Ancillary Services Nancy Wilson. “When it becomes possible for us to apply for a hospital, we’ll make some decisions.