Riverside Medical in Kankakee begins $28M behaviorial health project – Shaw Local

Work recently began on a $28 million project at Riverside Medical Center to update and expand its behavioral health department.

The project will take two years to complete.

The department, which can treat about 60 patients, will continue to be open during the project, Riverside officials said.

A rendering shows planned updates and expansions to Riverside Medical Center’s behavioral health department as part of a $28 million project. The entry is shown here. (Provided by Riverside Healthcare)

Part of the project’s funding will come from this year’s Riverside Pro-Am golf event, the 2026 Heart Ball and the 2026 Pro-Am, Riverside Healthcare President and CEO Phil Kambic said.

“We’re doing this project to redevelop and redesign all of our inpatient beds because the need is there. That part of the hospital is very dated,” he said. “We have mostly double rooms. So we’re expanding that unit, creating private rooms. This is for adolescents, one section of it, one section is for adults, and another section is for geriatric patients.”

A rendering shows planned updates and expansions to Riverside Medical Center’s behavioral health department as part of a $28 million project. A single-room design option is shown here. (Provided by Riverside Healthcare)

A rendering shows planned updates and expansions to Riverside Medical Center’s behavioral health department as part of a $28 million project. A single-room design option is shown here. (Provided by Riverside Healthcare)

Kambic said that at a time other hospitals are cutting back on behavioral health services, Riverside’s board of directors believes strongly in this project.

“It is such a needed service,” he said. “We are a not-for-profit mission-driven community hospital. This is what we should be doing.

“A lot of other organizations are getting out of it. The for-profits are getting out of it. A lot of the big academic medical centers are getting out of it, but it’s needed. That’s what we do as a mission-driven community hospital.”

Becky Schiltz, Riverside’s vice president of acute services, said the last work done on this part of the second floor was 1973.

Back then, it was the top floor of the hospital.

A majority of the current patient rooms are double occupancy. The update will allow for more single rooms, which will enable patients and staff to have more one-on-one interactions.

“We want constant interaction with our patients, and our current space does not let us do that,” Schiltz said. “Back then, it was much more compartmentalized.”

There will be more open spaces, brighter colors, and an atmosphere of hope and comfort for patients and their families.

A rendering shows planned updates and expansions to Riverside Medical Center’s behavioral health department as part of a $28 million project. The adolescent open-activity area is shown here. (Provided by Riverside Healthcare)

A rendering shows planned updates and expansions to Riverside Medical Center’s behavioral health department as part of a $28 million project. The adult open-activity area is shown here. (Provided by Riverside Healthcare)

“It’s going to have better light. It’s going to just be a much more healing environment,” Kambic said. “And that’s really what we’re trying to accomplish – not just private rooms, but really just an overall healing environment.

“We do a great job today, but it’s pretty stark brick walls,” he continued. “This is going to be much, much nicer, much more open – more open space for people to communicate, to wander in, and just a much, much more healing environment.”