What led to Franciscan Health’s $25M emergency department plans in West Lafayette

Hospital officials expect the emergency rooms to be ready in two years near U.S. 231 and Cumberland Avenue

(Image via Franciscan Health)

Franciscan Health announced plans Wednesday to build a $25 million, 24,000-square-foot standalone emergency department near U.S. 231 and Cumberland Avenue, on land the hospital system has been signaling it would develop in West Lafayette for close to a decade.

The facility would be about a third of the size of the hospital’s emergency department at Franciscan East Hospital in Lafayette, Terry Wilson, CEO of Franciscan Health in Lafayette, said Wednesday.

“We have talked about this forever,” Wilson said. “A couple of things have changed. One is the growth in West Lafayette – that is enormous. The number of people over there is impressive and more to come, with the (SK hynix) chip factory and other things.”

He said another factor is “the expectations of the community and our patients to raise the bar over there.”

Wilson said the project could be designed – basing it off similar Franciscan Health projects in Valparaiso and St. John – and ground broken yet this year. He said the aim was to start seeing patients in two years.

The project, as laid out by Franciscan Health, would include eight emergency exam rooms, including one equipped to handle trauma cases. That compares to Franciscan East’s emergency department with 28 rooms, including two fully equipped for trauma situations, attached to a 225-bed hospital.

Wilson said Franciscan Health expects to average 25 patients a day in the first year it’s open. That compares to 125 patients a day a Franciscan East.

West Lafayette Mayor Erin Easter on Wednesday called the plans “a great move in the right direction.”

“As West Lafayette continues to grow, we will continue to see an increase in services that we haven't had before,” West Lafayette Mayor Erin Easter said Wednesday. “Health care is one of those large needs that West Lafayette has. … Having to go for emergency services at the two existing hospitals – which are both great partners – is a minimum 20-minute drive from West Lafayette. So having something closer to home, both for the citizens of West Lafayette and everyone to the west of us and north and south of where we are, will be a huge benefit to the community.”

The move comes as plans have been revived for what Purdue and Indianapolis-based Ascension-St. Vincent have called a neighborhood hospital near the corner of U.S. 231 and Airport Road, three miles south of Franciscan Health’s proposed site.

That project in Purdue’s Discovery Park District, first announced in 2022, had been stalled since shortly after a November 2022 ceremonial groundbreaking at the site. At the time, the anticipated $25 million micro-hospital project was supposed to be ready by spring 2024, with eight emergency treatment rooms, eight inpatient medical beds and CT and other imaging services. Ascension officials said they had overall plans that would come in closer to $70 million at some point.

In April 2025, Purdue and Ascension officials confirmed that the project was still on, through neither specified whether services, space and other details would remain the same or had been changed. Stephan Masoncup, chief strategy officer for Ascension St. Vincent, in April told Based in Lafayette that the facility would include advanced urgent care, imaging, labs and primary care. The Indianapolis-based hospital system did not specify a timeline for construction or opening.

Initially, then-Purdue President Mitch Daniels had touted the deal as a huge get for the university and West Lafayette, cutting down the time during a medical emergency on the West Side, given that the community’s two emergency rooms – Franciscan East on Creasy Lane and IU Health Arnett on Veterans Memorial Parkway – were on the east side of Lafayette.

At that time, also, Wilson said Franciscan had been disappointed when Purdue told the health system in early 2022 that it was going with a partner from outside the Greater Lafayette market.

“We made the efforts to deal directly with Purdue for a number of years, and, they preferred to do what they've done with Ascension Health Care,” Wilson said Wednesday. “We said, well, we're going to keep developing our property. And they encouraged us to do so.”

Construction started in 2024 on a 44,000-square-foot orthopedic and sports medicine surgery center, a new collaboration between Franciscan Health and OrthoIndy, on the northern portion of land Franciscan Health has owned for the past decade. Wilson said that center is expected to start seeing patients in January 2026.

Wilson said the emergency department would go closest to the corner of U.S. 231 and Cumberland Avenue, near where the one-room Morris School once stood. The city and the hospital system worked to moved that brick building to the east, where it now is the centerpiece of West Lafayette’s new Cason Family Park.

Wilson said the planned emergency department and the collaboration with OrthoIndy would take up about two-thirds of the land Franciscan owns at that site. He said there are no set plans for the other third of the property, closer to Cason Family Park.

Franciscan Health also operates an urgent care, an imaging center, physical therapy and primary care services in a site on Sagamore Parkway West in West Lafayette.

Wilson recalled being pressed for more services, including emergency rooms, in West Lafayette through the years.

“(Former West Lafayette Mayor) John Dennis bugged me every time I saw him for the last 20 years – When? When? When?” Wilson said. “We were deliberate, like we always try to be and not as soon as some people hoped. But we're getting this very important project started, and we're excited about it.”

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