OSF St. Francis Medical Center Children’s Hospital of Illinois Milestone Project
Peoria, Ill.

The OSF St. Francis Medical Center Children’s Hospital of Illinois officially opened July 16 with a blessing and dedication ceremony. It is the fourth largest medical center in Illinois and the area’s only Level I trauma center, the highest level designation. Thornton Tomasetti served as structural engineer for the new hospital addition. The project comprises a seven-story, 440,000-sf, 127-bed hospital addition connected to the existing Gerlach Building. The addition houses three emergency departments, main lobby, surgery and interventional procedures laboratories, general pediatrics unit and an adult cardiac unit. The structural system consists of steel floor framing supported on steel columns to allow for large bay sizes and future flexibility. It is supported on spread footings with a mat foundation at the braced core. Wind and earthquake loads are resisted by a braced-core and steel moment frames. Two helipads sit atop of the mechanical floor roof. The architects were OWP/P Cannon Design and Stanley Beaman & Sears. The hospital was begun by The Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis in 1877 in a two-story frame house on the banks of the Illinois River.