Board again turns down Mercy
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The China team ballet line practices on the Rock River at Traxler Park on Wednesday.
CRYSTAL LAKE, ILL. — An Illinois planning board has once again denied Mercy Health System's request to build a $115 million, 70-bed hospital in Crystal Lake, Ill.
Tuesday's 6-3 denial by the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board is the third in the last 15 months for the project on land Mercy owns at Three Oaks Road and Route 31.
Rich Gruber, Mercy's vice president of community advocacy, said the Janesville-based health system will review its options for a project that has been proposed in various incarnations for nearly a decade.
In June 2011, the board denied Mercy a certificate of need for a $200 million, 128-bed hospital and clinic at the site.
As requested by the board, Mercy scaled back its proposal and came forward with plans for the 70-bed, $115 million facility. The board denied that project in December 2011.
In June 2011 and again in December 2011, the board took similar actions on a proposal from Centegra Health System, which wanted to build a $233 million, 128-bed hospital in Huntley, Ill., less than 10 miles from Mercy's Crystal Lake site.
In each of its rulings on Mercy and Centegra, the board had concerns about the effect of the new facilities on existing providers.
Mercy and Centegra officials appealed to an administrative law judge to review the board's December decisions.
The judge recommended that the review board take another look at both plans because of clerical filing errors.
In July, the board approved plans for the Centegra facility in Huntley and scheduled Mercy for Tuesday's hearing.
Gruber said the appeal process continues, as the board's vote Tuesday will now return to the administrative judge, who will make a final decision and send it back to the board again.
Gruber said the merits of Mercy's project still are strong, and he looks forward to making Mercy's case again to the board, hopefully by the end of this year.
On a separate track, Mercy and two other Illinois-based systems have filed lawsuits challenging the board's approval of Centegra's certificate of need, according to the Northwest Herald.
Mercy's complaint, the newspaper reported, alleges that the board's approval was an "arbitrary and capricious" decision that ran contrary to the evidence presented and to state criteria for siting hospitals.
Sep 14, 2012 at 12:02 p.m.
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rprp..."Illinois is smarter than we think. Mercy is not a quality service provider and Illinois knows it."
I guess that would explain why Mercy has two clinics in Algonquin, five in Crystal Lake, two in Harvard and McHenry and clinics in Barrington Lake In The Hills, Richmond, Elgin Hoffman Estates and Woodstock. That's 17 Mercy Health System facilities in the state of Illinois.
You are certainly entitled to your opinion regarding the Mercy Health System but you should at least have a clue about how the state of Illinois has dealt with them before you talk about how smart they are or how much they know.
Sep 14, 2012 at 9:53 a.m.
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I just love it when big money fights big money.
Sep 14, 2012 at 9:44 a.m.
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Keep up the GREAT work Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board!!! DONT FALL FOR IT!
Sep 14, 2012 at 9:11 a.m.
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Illinois is smarter than we think. Mercy is not a quality service provider and Illinois knows it.
Sep 14, 2012 at 7:53 a.m.
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Pay to play in Illinois. They got "outbid" on the secret application.
Sep 14, 2012 at 7:08 a.m.
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Mercy is a non for profit business. Remember when they first tried moving to Illinoise and got involved in a bribery scandal? I think there should be limits on non profit business and how big they can become.
Sep 13, 2012 at 10:38 p.m.
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Say what you want about Mercy... but how can someone block a company from opening up shop just to "protect" current local businesses? Isn't this a sort of collusion? Whatever happened to free market? Competition?
Sep 13, 2012 at 8:52 p.m.
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Crystal Lake sounds like a communist community protecting their little people. Nice.
Sep 13, 2012 at 6:24 p.m.
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Many large corporations are looking at China for expansion.
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