See inside Corewell Health’s sprawling, new $85 million orthopedic center

GRAND RAPIDS TOWNSHIP, MI — Corewell Health plans to begin treating patients by late October at its new $85 million orthopedic center, a facility the health system says will provide greater access to care from surgeons, physical therapists, and other medical professionals.

The three-floor building, located next door to Corewell’s care center at 2750 E. Beltline Ave. NE, features a host of services, ranging from spine, hand, foot and ankle surgery to physical therapy, sports medicine and orthopedic urgent care.

It also boasts a large-scale sports performance center.

There, athletes recovering from injuries can participate in customized training programs on an indoor and outdoor artificial turf field, exercise equipment, and more.

“I would say this facility itself is even very unique for the Midwest, and it puts us on the map for orthopedic centers nationally,” said Dr. James LeBolt, a division chief for orthopedic surgery at Corewell who helped develop the vision for the center.

Corewell Health broke ground on the building in September 2022.

Once fully open, it will be home to 185 employees, with an estimated 80,000 visits expected in its first year. It brings under one roof numerous orthopedic specialties, including foot and ankle, sports, trauma, total joint, and more.

As of now, those services are offered at multiple sites across Corewell’s footprint, though the majority are at its building at 4100 Lake Dr. SE. Providing them at one location, and performing orthopedic surgery outside a hospital setting, provides a more efficient patient experience, LeBolt said.

“What we found when we’re proving orthopedic care, particularly outpatient orthopedic care in a hospital setting, that sometimes it’s not as efficient as patients would like,” he said. “The access to care is not as quick as what we would like for our patients. It’s also very costly. So, this facility and this investment by Corewell Health allows us to bring a lower cost of care to our patients in the community.”

A Corewell spokesperson said by email that the business plan for the center states that net charges for surgical procedures “could be up to 40% lower” at the new facility. The health system did not provide a specific example of what a surgical procedure at the new building would cost compared with what it’s charging now.

The new orthopedic center has been envisioned for over a decade, said Sarah Banks, vice president for operations at Corewell.

That vision was informed by visits to orthopedic centers across the country.

Staff toured facilities at University of Utah, Rush University Medical Center in Chicago and the Andrews Institute in Florida to learn about the different models for care and what would work well in West Michigan, Banks said.

That work, coupled with a newfound emphasis on movement, wellness and injury recovery, helped set the stage for bringing the project from concept to reality, she said.

“If you have an orthopedic injury, getting back to full movement and back to activity is so important,” Banks said. “That’s where we really started to get traction with this orthopedic center. We realized how important bringing all of these services were to getting folks active again.”

This week, construction workers were putting the final touches on the building.

Corewell plans to open the building for office visits in late October, with other operations, including the sports performance center and surgery rooms, to follow in early 2025, officials say.

“We’re now one of the largest orthopedic groups in the state,” LeBolt said, as he reflected on the project’s significance to Corewell. “We’ve been able to attract surgeons from around the country that have trained at top-notch places you would traditionally think of as orthopedic powerhouses — Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic.”

The building’s opening comes amid a big period of expansion at Corewell.

The health system has either completed, or is in the process of building, several new facilities in Grand Rapids and beyond. That includes a roughly $100 million administrative office complex on Monroe Avenue NW in downtown Grand Rapids, and an 11-story story medical building at the corner of Michigan Street NE and Lafayette Ave NE on the Medical Mile.

At the new orthopedic center, a host of services are offered on each of the orthopedic center’s floors:

Garden level: This portion of the building is home to five operating rooms, 17 prep- and recovery- bays, and two private rooms.

First Floor: Grab-n-go food and fruit smoothy café, physical therapy, 30,000 square feet sports performance center, 24 exam rooms, four rooms for clinical support and casting, two x-rays, and a registration area.

Second floor: Operative sports medicine and total joint replacement services. There are 24 exam rooms and four “flex” rooms for clinical support and casting.

Third floor: Foot, ankle, hand and wrist care. Occupational therapy services are also provided on this floor. There are also 24-exam rooms and four “flex” rooms for clinical support and casting.

As part of the project, Corewell partnered with Arizona-based Atlas Healthcare Partners to manage the five surgical rooms. Atlas invested about $6.6 million into the project, officials said.

“You typically will bring in a surgery center management company to help make sure you’re running it efficiently and not running it like a hospital, because that’s how you keep the cost of care low,” said Banks, the vice president of operations at Corewell. “There’s a few of them out there in the country and Atlas is one that is very skilled at partnering with health systems.”

The building is located next door to Corewell Health’s Care Clinic, which opened in 2014 and is home to primary care services for the health system, including an urgent care clinic.

That proximity will help Corewell “coordinate care,” LeBolt said.

“They may be seeing their primary care provider next door and then they can zip over here for an appointment as needed,” he said. “They can see a orthopedic specialist, in many cases, same day. With our orthopedic urgent care they can absolutely walk in and absolutely see a specialist same day.”

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