As financial problems and building management concerns have cascaded at West Suburban Medical Center over the past year, multiple long-term medical tenants have moved out of spaces they rent, both at the main hospital campus on Austin Boulevard and at the River Forest campus on Lake Street.
In weeks prior to West Suburban’s shutdown last Wednesday, two major tenants relocated to new office spaces in Downtown Oak Park.
West Suburban Eye Associates had locations at both West Sub campuses. Last week, the eye doctor relocated to newly renovated space in the Byline Bank building at 1011 Lake St. Genesis Orthopedics and Sports Medicine also just moved from the main West Sub campus to a location at 1025 Westgate in Oak Park.
David King, a leading commercial leasing agent in Oak Park, said in a recent interview that he was fielding calls from additional West Sub tenants looking to relocate.
PCC Wellness, a 14-location health provider focused on underserved and often uninsured patients, has four offices that remain open on the Austin Boulevard campus, as of the morning of March 30.
Dr. Paul Luning, PCC’s chief medical officer, told Austin Weekly News and Wednesday Journal it has three offices in the hospital’s medical office building. That building remains open. PCC has its OB/GYN and primary care practices in those offices, said Luning.
PCC also houses its Walk-In Wellness and Urgent Car facility in what was previously West Sub’s emergency department on the south end of the main building. That facility, which is open 12 hours a day, seven days a week, remains open. Luning estimated the facility treats an average of 50 patients per day.
How long it will remain open in a building that is otherwise shut down is unknowable, he said. PCC staff found their space locked up at one point over the weekend, but remaining hospital security staff opened the doors.
“We are taking it day by day. And now we have two [hospital] owners who are not entirely in agreement,” said Luning. He said PCC has created contingency plans over the past year in the event West Sub closed. The plans include shifting operations to other PCC facilities in Austin and also on Lake Street near Austin in Oak Park. “We won’t have to shut down,” said Luning.
West Sub and PCC have a long relationship going back to the early 1980s when West Sub, then an independent, community-owned hospital, was sold for the first of many times to larger health systems.