The Sangamon County Department of Public Health’s building on Springfield’s east side is on the brink of a multimillion-dollar renovation that could make services more accessible to residents.
“We hope it’s a $6 million project,” said Sangamon County Board Chair Andy Van Meter. “And we hope that we will be able to do it entirely with federal funds, but we are experiencing – as everyone else in the community is experiencing – that these construction projects are becoming more and more expensive. Our goal, which we have achieved to some extent, is to provide positive support services that the county offers that can be accessed by community residents in one place with easy parking and easy access.”
Sangamon County Department of Public Health Director John Ridley said Southern Illinois University plans to move its communicable disease department from the Springfield Memorial Hospital campus to the remodeled public health building. The department tracks and treats tuberculosis, sexually transmitted infections and other infectious diseases.
“It’s a collaborative way to really work together as a community and bring all those things into a nice package of services,” Ridley said.
SIU officials declined to comment on the planned move.
Ridley said the remodel will also create larger offices for caseworkers handling the nutritional program Women Infants and Children, or WIC.
“A prototypical case would be a mother with a young child and then maybe another child in the car seat, and they’re going into an office with one of our case managers that is maybe a 100-square-foot office,” he said. “And there’s just not enough room for everybody. What we’re doing is redesigning those office spaces to make them a little larger. So, when the parent is in there with the case manager, and they’re going through all of the documentation and information they need to get the kids and the family registered, there’s room for the children to be in another part of the room without getting in the way.”
Ridley said he also expects laboratories used by county nurses to be expanded, along with a conference room that will be moved and expanded.
“We’re going to move that conference room all the way up to the front and expand it a little bit so it can handle 100 people. It will be easier for other community groups and community members to use that space,” he said.
About $6 million in federal COVID relief funds will be used toward the project, Ridley said.
“It’s money we have that was allocated to us from the pandemic. There are deadlines in place to utilize those funds. And we’re trying to do that in the best way we can to give back to the community what they deserve,” he said.
The county has not yet put the project out for bids among area contractors. O’Shea Builders has been retained as the construction manager.
“That’s different from them actually coming in and doing the work,” Ridely said. “But they’re helping us through the construction management piece of it from a planning standpoint. … I’m in the middle of the design and development phase. So as soon as we can get a set of drawings finalized and and we can get everything within our budget, I would like to see things start in the second quarter of calendar year ’25,” Ridely said.
Van Meter said this may be just the beginning of the expansion of services at the County Health Department, which could happen in phases.
“The Capital Township General Assistance Office is there now,” he said. “What we’re hoping to add is a workforce training office, and we’ve been talking to the Veterans Assistance Commission about perhaps offering their services there so that veterans can receive benefits in the same location. Our goal is one-stop shopping for all of these services, and we’re hoping we can fit it all within one building.”
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