With a $10 million donation to the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), Bruno and Sallie Pasquinelli created the UIC Pasquinelli Outpatient Surgery Fund. UIC will use the fund to equip a new center for outpatient surgery at UI Health, UIC’s hospital and academic health enterprise, with the new building located on the corner of Taylor and Wood Streets.
The center’s development will happen through a public-private partnership between UIC and Provident Resources Group, a 501(c)(3), tax-exempt organization. Provident will finance most of the building’s cost through tax-exempt bonds and lease the facility to UI Health during the bonds’ 30 year term.
“UI Health continues to see five percent annual growth in outpatient surgeries across many surgical service lines,” said Michael Zenn, CEO, University of Illinois Hospital and Clinics. “The new outpatient surgery and multispecialty procedure floors are designed to meet this demand in a much more efficient and patient friendly setting. It will also allow for expanding the number of complex inpatient surgeries being performed in the main hospital’s surgery facility, for which there is also a growing demand. UI Health has experienced record growth in kidney transplants and remains a leader in combined kidney/pancreas and small bowel transplantation.”
The building’s specialty clinic areas will serve gastrointestinal, urology, pharmacy, imaging, and transplant units. Also, the facility will replace UI Health’s Eye and Ear Infirmary with expanded capacity for advanced ophthalmology and otolaryngology programs.
With approximately 200,000 square feet on six floors, officials estimate construction will cost $191 million. UIC could break ground as early as August 2020, with completion estimated for 2022.
UIC Chancellor Michael Amiridis said, “As Chicago’s public research university and Illinois’s leading provider of public health care, we are unwavering in our commitment to meeting and exceeding the needs of our community of students and patients.”
“This new facility represents the extraordinary momentum of our clinical care delivery for our communities locally, across the state, and beyond,” said Robert Barish, MD, UIC vice chancellor for health affairs. “The new outpatient surgery center and clinic expansion is an exciting development that will elevate the care we provide.”
“Our surgical program has grown so that we are operating at or beyond capacity,” said Enrico Benedetti, MD, UIC professor and Warren H. Cole Chair of Surgery. “The Pasquinellis’ generous gift will allow us to give patients needing outpatient surgery more comfortable, state-of-the-art space, and it will free up our inpatient operating rooms to take on additional, more complex cases.”
About half the surgical cases at UI Health are outpatient procedures. Of those, a significant portion consists of orthopedic, ophthalmologic, and head and neck surgical care.
Benedetti said the gift also will allow UI Health to expand use of minimally invasive robotic surgery techniques for outpatient procedures.
In honor of the gift, UIC will name the third floor, which will hold eight operating rooms, the Bruno and Sallie Pasquinelli Outpatient Surgery Center and feature the Pasquinelli name on the new building’s exterior.
Bruno Pasquinelli was the president and co-founder—along with his brother, Tony—of Pasquinelli Construction Co. Sallie Pasquinelli, an artist, co-founded the Village Artists art studio in the south suburbs.
“My brothers, sisters, and I were all born at Mother Cabrini Hospital, so my family has an 80-plus year history in this neighborhood,” Bruno Pasquinelli said. “In essence, I have come full circle. To have the Pasquinelli name on a building on Taylor Street in this Italian-American neighborhood means the world to Sallie and me.”
For more information, call (312) 996-8277.