MILBOURNE – Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia cut the ribbon Thursday afternoon on a 175,000-square-foot supply and logistics center at the site of the former Sears property at 6400 Market St.
The $85 million two-story facility will house storage for supplies, linen and beds and central sterile processing, information services, and a call center for support services among other things.
Joni Rittler, hospital vice president of supply chain management, said the facility was seven years in the planning and she noted it happened to also be national supply chain week and her team was being honored for its work keeping the medical team supplied to help the children.
The new center will have 250 employees, including 70 new positions, and officials hope it will serve as a catalyst for additional jobs and economic opportunities in the community as CHOP continues to grow.
Donald Moore, senior vice president at CHOP, said Milbourne welcomed the facility with open arms and the hospital is thrilled to be there. The hospital has brought cutting edge technology to support the operation, including a picking machine that is automated to retrieve supplies.
In alignment with diversity goals, CHOP has engaged several local, women- and minority-owned companies to provide services for cleaning, pest control, and transportation at the property and hopes for additional business opportunities for local eateries to provide amenities to the employees.
The addition of the building to CHOP’s facilities portfolio creates an industry-unique model that enables multiple support service departments to share resources, increase efficiencies, and improve services while accommodating increasing demands for patient care, CHOP said.
The facility provides the space to support CHOP’s locations across the region, including the Philadelphia and King of Prussia campuses as well as several ambulatory care offices.
Rittler called it a shared services building.
Among the plans enacted with consideration for the neighborhood were few windows on the west side of the building, padded bay doors in the loading dock to keep light or noise going out.
She said a lot of supplies will move through the facilities to supply both the University City hospital as well as the King of Prussia hospital and satellite centers across the Delaware Valley.
“Our instrumentation for our operating rooms will be here so we’re going to be transporting instrumentation from here. There’s going to be a lot of things happening,” RIttler said.
She said the building will be occupied 24/7.
State Sen. Tim Kearney pointed out the development was secured after the awarding of a $1.5 million Pennsylvania Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program grant as an initial investment as well as a $250,000 state grant from the Commonwealth Financing Authority.
While CHOP is the tenant, the property is owned by Pomegranate Real Estate.
The project includes landscaping and 24-hour security for the property.
Milbourne Police Chief Shawn Payne welcomed the new property and noted the former lot brought out safety issues such as loitering and illegal dumping.
Milbourne Mayor Mahabubul Tayub was ecstatic about the development in his community.
“I’m so excited. I know the time that was first proposed on bringing this project. It was 2016 and I was on the council at the time. We partnered with CHOP,” Tayub said. “Thank you so much.”
State Rep. Gina Curry recalled that when she was on the Upper Darby School Board there was interest in finding a use for the former Sears property.
“This was a space that we knew for many years sat, from 1991, and now here we are in 2022 with all your hard work, celebrating a wonderful space that brings promise, economic development and many jobs on the horizon,” Curry said.
