Groundbreaking brings OrthoIndy into West Lafayette

Franciscan, OrthoIndy collaborating on 44,000-square-foot facility. Plus, why Franciscan is taking down a garage. And, wait … no pipeline/water discussion this summer for General Assembly?

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FRANCISCAN, ORTHOINDY BREAK GROUND ON NEW WEST LAFAYETTE SURGERY CENTER

Work started, ceremonially, at least, Wednesday at the corner of U.S. 231 and Cumberland Avenue on a 44,000-square-foot orthopedic and sports medicine surgery center, a new collaboration between Franciscan Health and OrthoIndy.

The center, expected to be open in late 2025, marks a full-on entry into the Greater Lafayette market for the state’s largest orthopedic practice a year after taking in physicians from the  Lafayette Orthopedic Clinic.

John Ryan, CEO of OrthoIndy. (Photo: Brian Powell)

“We have been looking to grow over the last number of years in an effort to bring world class orthopedic care to all Hoosiers across the state,” John Ryan, OrthoIndy CEO, said, during groundbreaking ceremonies Wednesday. “One of the locations that we have been very focused on within the last couple of years has been on Lafayette. … We spent a lot of time in person and on the phone over the last year forging our partnership with Franciscan and really dreaming big in terms of what this this facility would be in the programming that we would bring to the community.”

The Franciscan OrthoIndy Surgery Center will offer an urgent care for orthopedic care, as well general orthopedic surgery and rehabilitation.

The site has been tabbed for a Franciscan project for years. Signs near the corner after that section of U.S. 231 opened a little under a decade ago prompted West Lafayette and volunteers to move a one-room school house several hundred yards away as the centerpiece of Cason Family Park, now under construction just to the east of the Franciscan site.

Jim Siemers, vice president and chief operating officer for Franciscan Health Western Indiana, said the space wasn’t an automatic choice when talks began with OrthoIndy in 2023. Siemers said they looked at three sites in Lafayette and West Lafayette, ultimately coming back to the acreage at Cumberland and U.S. 231. Siemers said Franciscan is looking  at other projects the could go on the rest of the 30-plus acres.

Ryan said OrthoIndy – which has 12 locations statewide, including 11 physicians based in Lafayette – plan to keep a presence near Franciscan Health’s hospital on Creasy Lane. OrthoIndy doctors work out of a clinic on Creasy Lane now. Ryan said decision about where to put Lafayette offices wouldn’t be settled until after the West Lafayette facility opens in late 2025.

“We’ve been watching the Lafayette area, and West Lafayette in particular, because this area has shown such growth,” Ryan said. “We follow that. We go where communities are growing. Having Purdue right here really jumped out at us, too. … We’ve heard about the need and that pent-up demand for care. We want to play a role, plant our flag and meet that demand.”

MEANWHILE, ON ANOTHER FRANCISCAN SITE …:  Work continued this week to demolish a four-story, roughly 400-space parking garage at 17th and Tippecanoe streets, across from Franciscan Health Central’s main facility.