OLR to stay open after Presence Health finds buyer

by CYRYL JAKUBOWSKI

Our Lady of the Resurrection Medical Center, 5645 W. Addison St., is being sold to Community First Healthcare of Illinois after Presence Health signed a letter of intent with the newly formed benefit corporation to sell the financially struggling hospital, according to officials.

The hospital is part of Presence Health, the largest Catholic health system in the state, which was created in 2011 through the merger of Resurrection Health Care and Provena Health. Presence has 12 hospitals and 22,000 employees, 4,000 medical professionals and a revenue base of nearly $3 billion.

"They have met the criteria that we have set to best serve the health care needs of the community," Presence Health spokeswoman Angela Benander said. Benander would not disclose the financial details of the agreement until the deal is completed.

Community First Healthcare spokesman Ed Green said that the benefit corporation was formed in order to help hospitals like Our Lady of the Resurrection to continue to serve the community. Green said that benefit corporations operate like a mix of nonprofit and for-profit organizations. He said the corporation's mission is not only to maximize profits but also to make a commitment to benefit to the community.

Governor Pat Quinn signed the Benefit Corporation Act into law in 2012. The law provides that a corporation may elect to become a benefit corporation by amending its articles of incorporation. The corporation must have the purpose of creating a general public benefit, and it is required to file an annual report with the Secretary of State's Office.

The New York-based Muneris Capital Group, which works to turn around hospitals experiencing financial difficult, is financing the corporation, Green said.

"We have excellent senior executives who have experience, we have idea men, we have the finances from Muneris, and we are hoping that things will fall in line to do what's right," Green said. "We are excited about this opportunity."

The investors have "resources to support a turnaround for the hospital that will enable it to continue to serve an important role in promoting the health of its community now and in the future. The Community First Healthcare local executive team has significant health care experience in the Chicago market," according to a Presence Health press release.

Green said that venture intends to make improvements to the hospital. "We are going to invest $20 million over 5 years into the facility itself," he said. "One idea that we have is to take the aging emergency room and take that ER and tweak it, modernize it."

"If you modernize that ER and put some resources in it, remodel it, now you have a facility that can take in more patients and that hopefully increases admission rates," Green said. "There is no silver bullet, and this will definitely take some time, but we like the communities around that hospital, how engaged people are, and we want that."

Presence announced that it was selling the hospital in March, citing years of operating losses and anticipated financial shortfalls this year. The announcement to sell came after months of speculation that the center might close or move away from providing inpatient care because of industry trends.

Our Lady of the Resurrection suffered an operating loss of $12.5 million in 2012. The loss was reduced to $9.8 million last year after cost-cutting measures, but an estimated $19 million loss was anticipated this year, officials said.

Presence also has signed a letter of intent with Glen Health and Home Management to sell the Presence Ballard Rehabilitation nursing facility, 9300 W. Ballard Road, Des Plaines, and the Presence Saint Andrew Life Center, 7000 N. Newark Ave., Niles, Benander said.

Benander said that the buyers agreed that they will strengthen the facilities and keep Our Lady of Resurrection an inpatient care facility, Ballard as a skilled nursing facility and Saint Andrew as a retirement and senior care facility.

"The bottom line is that they have signed a letter of intent and they can maintain their existing services, and the employees would be able to keep their sick time for their years of service," Alderman Timothy Cullerton (38th) said. "From the perspective of the community, I think that this is a good thing because before we were talking about closing the hospital. They might bring in new management staff or some job loss might happen because of attrition, but I think they are committed to keeping it the way it is."

Cullerton said that the hospital's emergency room will remain open.

"We are pleased that Community First Healthcare and Glen Health and Home Management will continue to serve the respective acute care and senior care needs of these communities," Presence Health president and chief executive officer Sandra Bruce said. "Both organizations have expressed their desire to continue our commitment to serving the needs of these communities and are committed to retaining employees and maintaining existing charity care. As a Catholic health care system, these were all critical factors in our selection process."

Bill Brownlow, who will serve as the president of Community First Healthcare said that the leadership of the corporation has experience with transforming hospital operations and that organizing Community First as a benefit corporation will allow people to strike a balance between meeting the needs of the community and the financial strength of the medical center.

Green said that Brownlow has worked on projects in Joliet "that rely heavily on Medicaid and are in urban settings." He said that Our Lady of the Resurrection fits the organization's model and that the corporation's officers are confident that they can revive the hospital and implement community services.

"We are going to be working on the financial agreements by the end of the summer with the goal of closing on all transactions by the end of the year," Benander said.

The hospital opened as Northwest Hospital in 1955, and it changed its name to John F. Kennedy Medical Center in 1986. An intensive care unit opened in 1969, and the hospital was formed as a nonprofit institution in 1968.

The hospital became a part of Resurrection Health Care in 1988, and Chicago-based Resurrection Health Care and Mokena-based Provena Health merged in 2011.

NW Side residents review Milwaukee Avenue proposals

by CYRYL JAKUBOWSKI

Opponents of a city proposal that may include reducing traffic lanes to improve safety on sections of Milwaukee Avenue appeared to outnumber supporters at a packed open house that was held on July 2 at the Copernicus Center Annex, 5214 W. Lawrence Ave.

More than 200 people attended the event, which featured engineers from the city Department of Transportation who presented three options for the "Complete Streets" safety improvement plan. The department was seeking community reaction to the plans, and officials answered questions, which at times led to heated exchanges between residents and Alderman John Arena (45th), who supports the project.

The proposed project would affect Milwaukee between Lawrence Avenue and Elston Avenue, but fewer changes are expected between Lawrence and the Kennedy Expressway, where traffic is more congested due to the relatively narrow roadway.

One option calls for all existing lanes of traffic to remain north of the expressway and the existing bike lanes on Milwaukee to be made wider. The current bike lanes measure 5 1/2 feet wide and are located to the left of the parking lane, which the department refers to as outside the parking lane.

Under a second option a lane of traffic would be eliminated in each direction but the bike lanes would be positioned to the outside of parked cars.

The third option option would eliminate 20 percent of street parking and one lane of traffic in each direction, and barriers, such as concrete waiting areas for bus riders, would be used to protect bike lanes that would be located along the curb.

All three options include high-visibility crosswalks, pedestrian refuge islands and curb extensions, which shorten the distance of crosswalks. In addition, traffic signal improvements would be made in an effort to improve the flow of traffic, including places where lanes of traffic would be removed.

"There's a lot of people that are coming up to me that don't want to grandstand and just want to say 'thank you,'" Arena said at the meeting. "I've actually had more than I thought that came up to me and said 'I like option C,' which is not what I thought I would hear, but I do have a lot of people saying that."

Arena has not endorsed any of the options.

Arena said that one purpose of the project is to reduce speeding. He said that many motorists drive 45 miles per hour on Milwaukee and that more than 900 accidents have occurred in the area since 2008.

"If we can calm speed, then we can get more people involved in the roadway," Arena said.

"Pedestrians are shoppers, and if any business is not thinking about how to make their shoppers comfortable walking into their business, then I don't think they are doing themselves a service.”

At the meeting the Gladstone Park Chamber of Commerce gave CDOT officials a petition containing about 4,000 signatures that opposes the Milwaukee Avenue "road diet."

The petition states, "While we fully support the improvement of Milwaukee Ave. from Lawrence Ave. to Elston Ave., we do not support the idea of a 'road diet' that would reduce Milwaukee Ave. to one lane of traffic in either direction to make room for a protected bike lane and eliminate parking along the curb."

Chamber board member John Garrido said that there are other ways to slow traffic without reducing Milwaukee to two lanes. Garrido and chamber president David Wians made the presentation during the meeting.

"These petitions were signed by 90 percent of the local residents, business owners and stakeholders in the area," Wians said. "These contain signatures and addresses and are legitimate. Five to ten percent are not from the area."

"This is not like the business community is trying to freak everybody out and that their businesses will be hurt," Wians said. "I want to thank the people of this community who are smart enough to figure this out themselves, and that's why we've had such an outpouring of petitions."

Arena said that he does not see the logic in the chamber's "grandstanding."

"I don't know what their agenda is," Arena said. "It doesn't seem like a good business decision for a chamber of commerce to walk into something like this and especially stand next to a political candidate and turn it into a show because he wants to have credibility."

Arena was referring to Garrido, who is running for alderman in the 45th Ward. Garrido lost to Arena by 30 votes in the last election.

Arena said that the purpose of the meeting was to get reaction from the community to make an educated decision regarding the proposed options. He said that the transportation department has done research on the street and that the goal of the project is not to create congestion but to improve safety. Arena said that department officials will examine the petition to see if "there is any validity to it."

"We don't have a choice yet, and we need to see what the community wants," project consultant John Wirtz said. "I think most people don't like the idea of removing travel lanes from the road, but we'll need to look at the comments and see what people say."

"Safety is the goal of the project and speeding is a big part of reducing safety," Wirtz said. "Right now 75 percent of the cars on the road are speeding."

"People are under the impression that this is creating bike lanes and leaving less room for cars, but the majority of people who will benefit from this are pedestrians," Jim Merrell of the Active Transportation Alliance said after the meeting. "I think that the people who attended the meeting were under the impression that there was a definite plan in place and that lanes are being reduced."

"At the end of the day, the purpose of the project is to increase the safety on that roadway by reducing speed," Merrell said. "I think because the road is so wide in certain parts, people tend to speed. I found it interesting to learn that so many accidents, more than 900 occurred within the past few years."

Merrell said that the alliance, which works to make bicycling, walking and public transit safe, supports the "Complete Streets" project and that the transportation department has found that the project would not cause congestion and people would not lose time because of synchronized traffic lights.

Those who attended the meeting were not allowed to make public comments, but many were willing to speak to reporters. Some residents and business owners spoke against the proposals and questioned the format of the meeting.

"There's no one here to walk me through it," one resident said. "They just have these stills addressing only minor issues of it. They don't realize that it's just not going to be about bike safety; who is going to be against bike safety?

"Bicyclists ride seven months out of the year. This is going to affect traffic and congestion of the neighborhood 365 days out of the year."

"I thought this was going to be a town hall meeting, but it's not," another resident said. "It's a quick sales job to try to market something that they've already approved without consent of the residents of the neighborhood.

"If they wanted to do this in a democratic manner, they would have put a referendum on a ballot and let us decide whether we want it. It's going to stifle the businesses on Milwaukee Avenue."

"The important thing to note here is that there is no plan yet and that there are three options on the table,"

A resident said that reducing Milwaukee to one lane in each direction would create bottlenecks that would cause cars to speed down side streets to make up for lost time.

"You're going to have all this traffic that will back up," the resident said. "You're going to have problems in the winter. Who is going to plow the bike lanes? Who will plow the streets?"

"I've talked to many people here and not one person had a good thing to say about narrowing the streets," a business owner said. "I have nothing against bike lanes, so this is not about that. Why don't they just leave everything alone, repave it, remark it, visible marks where you can cross and where you can park."

Near the end of the event after most of those who attended the meeting had left, a group of about 15 residents spoke with Arena about the proposal.

"You're saying we're wrong and you're right," one resident shouted. Another said that the alderman is not listening to the voice of the community. Arena replied that it takes more than 15 people to make up a community.

"The representative body at (a previoius meeting held at Saint Tarcissus School) wasn't good enough for you either, so tonight you decided, let's not have a discussion, let's not have the public have their view when I've got a full room shoulder to shoulder," a resident said. "I'm not going to ask them what they think, I'm going to wait until three quarters of them leave."

"I'm saying you just smugly counted how many people are standing here, but you did not give any of the people standing here when it was shoulder to shoulder the opportunity to raise their hands and say anything in public with everybody here," the resident said.

Arena said that the meeting provided the opportunity for residents to voice their opinions by filling out a form that was available at the meeting.

The final meeting on the proposal will be held later this summer.