Friday, April 4, 2025
4/4/2025
Community Project Funding/Congressionally Directed Spending - Construction - Project Address: 4720 S California Ave, Chicago, IL Project Director: Dan Fulwiler, President & CEO Dfulwiler@esperanzachicago.org 773-584-6130 Website: www.esperanzachicago.org Funds requested: $1,000,000 Esperanza Health Centers seeks Congressionally Directed Spending through the HRSA-22-134 funding opportunity to help support equipment purchase for our new clinical building, to be erected on the lot of our current Esperanza Brighton Park site, at 4720 S. California Avenue. This is a request for equipment-only funding. Esperanza’s service area, on Chicago’s Southwest side, is in great need of additional health care services. The entire region is both a Primary Care Health Professional Shortage Area and a Mental Health Care Health Professional Shortage Area. The low-income, predominantly Latinx communities we serve have been beset by health and economic inequities now the COVID-19 pandemic, which hit Chicago’s Southwest side with singular force, has exacerbated those disparities, leaving illness, death, unemployment, and trauma in its wake. In light of this situation, Esperanza is moving forward with an ambitious expansion plan to add a second facility on the lot where our largest clinic, Esperanza Brighton Park, currently stands. We’re designing the new building to incorporate 43,000 square feet of clinical and non-clinical space. It will contain 27 standard exam rooms, 10 standard counseling rooms, 2 flexible congregation rooms, 2 lab areas, 8 medical offices, 1 break room, and durable medical equipment storage. In addition the first floor will include and expanded geriatrics suite designed for a PACE program, as well as a family medicine residency program, created in partnership with Rush University Medical Center. We are also intent on making the expanded Esperanza Brighton Park campus a community hub, where patients and local residents and gather and socialize. To accomplish this, the building will include a lofted Super Lobby, in which spaces for studying, artmaking, food service, and co-working will be carved out. We will also develop the outdoor space to include and indoor/outdoor walking trail, providing another opportunity for community members to gather and recreate. Management of this project will be the responsibility of Cara Goldsberry of McNitt Consulting, LLC, McNitt Consulting, a woman-owned, full-service firm. Cara project managed the successful design and construction of our current Esperanza Brighton Park building, which opened in May 2019, as well as Esperanza’s recent administrative office build-out. She has also worked as project manager for a three-floor build-out at Northwestern Medicine, as well as the construction of a five-story research and education center at Loyola University Chicago. The project is scheduled for completion by the fall of 2023. We anticipate the increased capacity brought by this expansion will allow us to serve some 15,000 new patients during the building’s first year of operation.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).