Trustees approve Glenbrook Hospital's expansion for Cardiovascular Institute

The Glenview village board on Tuesday approved a 230,000-square foot expansion of NorthShore Glenbrook Hospital to add a cardiovascular unit.

"We're just very excited," said NorthShore Glenbrook Hospital President Jesse Peterson Hall. "We will be bringing advanced cardiovascular care to the Glenview Community. I think it's a really positive, new development for the Glenbrook campus and the community that we serve. I'm just very excited about it."

The addition earned unanimous recommendation Jan. 26 by Glenview's New Development Commission, and gained initial 5-0 approval by village trustees during its first consideration before the board on Feb. 15. Trustees approved it Tuesday as part of the consent agenda.

The hospital's Cardiovascular Institute expansion project will be a two-phase operation at NorthShore Glenbrook Hospital, 2100 Pfingsten Road. Opened in 1977 in Glenview, it is part of the NorthShore University HealthSystem.

Phase 1 is the construction of a 165,000-square foot, one-story building extending south from the existing hospital building. It would include expansion of the parking lot on the east, south of the retention pond that is west of Pfingsten Road.

Phase 2 is a multiple-story, 65,000-square foot addition above the Phase 1 improvements.

"We're going to be adding six new operating rooms in which we will perform cardiac surgery and vascular surgery. We're also going to be opening nine new catheterization labs, expandable to 13," Peterson Hall said.

"And then we are creating all of the support services that enable those operating rooms and catheterization labs to operate, taking care of the patients before the procedure and after the procedure," he said.

Glenview's New Development Committee had granted several zoning variations for the construction, including a building height of 70.3 feet rather than the 70 feet normally allowed in a hospital zoning district.

It also granted variances for an elevator enclosure and a mechanical penthouse that exceed zoning code heights, and for narrower landscape rows in the parking lot.

Peterson Hall said most NorthShore Glenbrook Hospital patients come from Glenview, Northbrook and other nearby towns, including Wheeling and Mount Prospect, but the expansion will draw people from a broader area.

"This will become one of the most important centers for cardiovascular care in our system," he said.

Phase 1 of the expansion is expected to open in early 2024, about two years from now, Peterson Hall said. There is no timeline attached to Phase 2, though the Village of Glenview granted a five-year window for second-phase building permits.

"Glenbrook is going to remain a general community hospital with a full-service emergency department, and we're going to continue to serve the Glenview community as we have done since 1977," Peterson Hall said.