CHICAGO - The Illinois Finance Authority advanced borrowing plans totaling about $700 million for a handful of schools, cultural institutions, hospitals, and a pioneering proton therapy center in West Chicago to treat cancer.
The Northern Illinois Proton and Research Center LLC received preliminary approval to issue up to $200 million to finance building construction and to purchase equipment for the $160 million proton therapy center Northern Illinois University is building.
The NIPRC, an affiliation of NIU in DeKalb, was formed last year and won construction approval for the project from the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board in February after which it broke ground in the DuPage County National Technology Park in West Chicago.
The project stems from a 2006 feasibility study commissioned by NIU and conducted by ProBeam Oncology - an affiliate of the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the country, claiming 560,000 lives annually, according to the National Cancer Institute, and proton therapy is considered cutting-edge treatment.
Radiation therapy is a common treatment, but its dosage is complicated by a need to kill cancer cells without damaging healthy tissue, which can compromise a patient's quality of life. Proton therapy utilizes protons generated through an acceleration process with magnets steering the proton beam to allow for a more precise targeting of cancerous cells, according to IFA documents.
Proton therapy is considered especially beneficial in treating brain and spinal cord tumors, bone and soft tissue sarcomas, lung cancer, gastrointestinal cancer, head and neck cancers, eye tumors, pediatric cancer, prostate, and advanced breast cancer.
Proton therapy is only currently regularly available in the U.S. at the Loma Linda University Medical Center in California; a center at the University of Texas; a center in Bloomington, Ind.; Massachusetts General Hospital; and a center at the University of Florida.
The new facility would serve about 1,500 patients annually. The center will house four proton beam treatment rooms, a research space, treatment planning and simulation rooms, examination rooms and other office, and classroom space. The center is expected to begin treating patients in early 2010.
The NIPRC plans to sell unrated debt without insurance and is seeking a waiver of IFA rules to do so. A feasibility study for the project will be completed before the borrower returns to the IFA board for final approval. IFA rules require a market feasibility study be done by an independent accounting or consulting firm demonstrating the financial viability of a project financed with unrated bonds that don't carry an insurance policy.
Structural details are preliminary but officials are looking at issuing taxable or tax-exempt bonds that may use a variable-rate demand structure with a direct-pay letter of credit. JPMorgan is the underwriter.
Central DuPage Health, based in Winfield, received preliminary approval to sell up to $190 million of debt to refund about $90 million of auction-rate securities and raise another $90 million of new money to finance several projects including a new 280,000 square-foot pavilion and parking garage.
DuPage last October received a certificate of need for the pavilion that will include 202 private medical surgical rooms and the 400-space garage. The hospital plans to use a mix of borrowing and cash on hand to cover the $257 million price tag for the projects. Construction is expected to be completed in 2012. The group's acute care hospital and other facilities are located on a campus in northwestern DuPage County on a 1.2 million acre site.
The health system intends to use a fixed-rate structure on the deal being underwritten by Morgan Stanley. Jones Day is bond counsel. The system is rated AA by Fitch Ratings and Standard & Poor's.
The University of Chicago Medical Center received preliminary approval to sell up to $170 million to current refund variable-rate bonds sold in 1994 and 1998 that carry insurance from the former triple-A rated MBIA Insurance Corp. Rates have shot up on the debt because of MBIA's downgrades.
The medical center is looking at either a fixed-rate structure or new variable-rate structure backed by a letter of credit. The medical center's current ratings are AA-minus from Standard & Poor's and Aa3 from Moody's Investors Service.
The medical center operate three hospitals, its main facility, a women's hospital, and a children's hospital on the University of Chicago campus on Chicago's south side. JPMorgan is the underwriter and Jones Day is bond counsel.
