URBANA – When Carle Foundation Hospital was planning to add five new stories to its north tower building, there were those who thought it wasn't going to be enough space to meet current and future patient demand.

There were those who thought Carle should be adding seven stories instead of five – and they were right, Carle Foundation Chief Executive Dr. James Leonard said.

A little more than a year after those five new stories opened, Carle is still in a space crunch and looking to add more.

The hospital plans to file an application next month with the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board seeking permission to undertake its most ambitious modernization project ever on the central Urbana campus.

The last big building project that included the north tower expansion cost about $50 million. This new construction job would run nearly five times that much, hospital officials say.

Some highlights of the $240 million package:

– A new eight-story, nearly 350,000-square-foot tower.

– Modernization of 50,000 square feet of existing space.

– New areas for comprehensive cardiovascular care, digestive health and rehabilitation services in the new tower.

– 15 new neonatal intensive care unit beds, boosting the total NICU beds for sick babies to 40.

And where would Carle find room for this new space?

The new tower would be built next to and west of the 11-story north tower, and one side of the north tower would be opened to connect to the new tower, said Stephanie Beever, the hospital's vice president of business development.

A major factor in squeezing it in comes courtesy of the city of Urbana, which agreed to vacate a piece of Coler Avenue so the hospital can build on top of it.

The new space is important not only to meet today's demands but also those coming around the corner, Carle officials say.

Beever says Carle has increasingly become a referral location for other hospitals in the area that don't have some of the specialized services needed by the sickest patients.

Neonatal intensive care is a prime example. Carle treated 374 sick babies in that unit last year, an 85 percent increase over a decade ago, and a new 25-bed neonatal intensive care unit that just opened in the north tower already needs more space.

Parts of the hospital – built several decades ago – fall short of today's space needs because they were built when hospital beds were smaller, hospital rooms didn't need to hold so much equipment and patients didn't expect to have such ample accommodations for families by their bedsides, Beever said.

More demand – on Carle and every other hospital in the nation – is coming soon, as the first baby boomers begin reaching retirement age in three years and stressing an already challenged health care system.

More than six of every 10 boomers are expected to spend their golden years with more than one chronic illness, according to a report done last year for the American Hospital Association. More than one in three boomers will be obese. By 2020, nearly half of all boomers are projected to have arthritis, and by 2030, one in four boomers will be living with diabetes.

Leonard said new waves of demand are already arriving.

"The demand is such today that I wish the (new) building was done," he said.

Leonard said the expansion plans would give patients and their families the kind of space they desire, but the project is also about improving the level of health care in the community.

The new space will make it easier to recruit more medical staff and top researchers, further increase the vibrancy of Champaign-Urbana as a regional medical center and make Carle an even larger contributor to economic development, he said.

"We're very excited about where we're going and what we're doing," he added.

For their part, city officials want to see Carle – both a major taxpayer and major employer – expand in the center of the community, where medical care is the most accessible to everyone, Urbana Community Development Director Libby Tyler said.

"We've always encouraged them to build within their campus, and in terms of access to the community, this is very central, with good bus access and structured parking," she said. "Being in the center of town is very important. It's the right thing to do."

Despite the city's support, Carle's growth plans aren't a done deal. The Health Facilities Planning Board, which has oversight over large medical building projects, must first determine whether there's a need for the new space.

After Carle files an application with the board, Beever said a show of support from the broader community will be essential.

If Carle's plans are heard by the board by late summer and approved, hospital officials said the new tower could be completed as early as 2011.