As healthcare needs evolved across the region, Franciscan Health sought to expand provider capacity while making care easier to access. In Michigan City, that vision created an opportunity to bring multiple healthcare services together under one roof, provide room for future growth, and give a familiar community property an entirely new purpose.
The former J.C. Penney at Marquette Mall is being transformed into a 120,000-square-foot medical office building. Located approximately 2.5 miles north of Franciscan Health Michigan City, the project will turn a former retail destination into a convenient regional destination for care.
Working with Tonn and Blank Construction through a design-build delivery, Elevatus is leading the architectural transformation, reimagining a building designed for retail around the needs of patients, providers, and modern healthcare delivery.
That transformation reaches from the inside out. Elevatus is reimagining the former department store’s exterior façade to give the building a more welcoming, contemporary identity that reflects its new purpose. Inside, spaces once designed for merchandise, shoppers, and open sales floors are being rethought for the privacy, workflows, technology, infrastructure, and variety of environments healthcare demands.
The design will accommodate more than 45 physicians, along with imaging, urgent care, and multi-specialty physician offices. Planned services include internal medicine, orthopedics, family medicine, pediatrics, ENT and audiology, endocrinology, and rheumatology, while the facility will also support resident ambulatory rotations.
Bringing this range of services together gives a familiar property a new role in the community, with capacity for continued growth and the potential to become part of an even broader vision for health and wellness at the site. Through adaptive reuse, an existing building gains a new life while responding to an entirely different set of community needs.
Construction is anticipated to be complete by the end of 2027. When the doors open, a place once centered on shopping will begin its next chapter centered on health, access, and community. A former retail destination will become a destination for care, giving a prominent Michigan City property renewed purpose and a new way to serve the region for years to come.
