Cancer Treatment Centers of America announces move to Florida

Cancer Treatment Centers of America, on an afternoon when Chicago was enduring a temperature of 2 degrees above zero and Boca Raton, Fla., was enjoying 78-degree weather, announced it is moving its national headquarters from the Chicago area to the Sunshine State, where it is expected to employ some 225 people.

CTCA executives will be relocating from its suburban Chicago location in Schaumburg, Ill. Information on how many employees would relocate was not given. CTCA has yet to choose an exact location in Boca Raton, and no date has been given for when the company will move.

The five-hospital national network has facilities in Goodyear, Ariz.; Newnan, Ga.; Philadelphia; Tulsa; and Zion, Ill. A recent Modern Healthcare investigation found that three of these facilities were among the nation's leaders in receiving Medicare supplemental “outlier” payments that are based on hospital retail prices as opposed to standard Medicare payments.

The decision to relocate to Boca Raton was based on the “favorable business climate,” closeness to three airports, and other factors determined to be helping allow CTCA accelerate investment in talent, technology and other resources, according to a news release from Florida Gov. Rick Scott's office (PDF).

Gerard van Grinsven, CTCA president and CEO, said in the release that the Boca Raton location provided company employees “exciting opportunities for further personal and professional development.” He thanked the state of Florida, the city of Boca Raton, the Palm Beach County Business Development Board, and the governor's Enterprise Florida organization “for their assistance with our evaluation of the benefits associated with our relocation.”

Van Grinsven replaced Stephen Bonner as CEO last year. Bonner remains with the company as executive chairman.

Illinois officials “made a pretty aggressive offer” to keep CTCA's headquarters in the state, said Dave Roeder, spokesman for the Illinois Department of Commerce.

The sweeteners Illinois offered the company include an income tax break through its Economic Development for a Growing Economy, or EDGE, program which offers corporate income tax breaks based on a percentage of personal income tax returns it could expect from the retained jobs. A job training program was also on the table.

“Altogether, the proposal was to retain about 600 jobs here at separate locations they have in Schaumburg and Zion,” Roeder said. “We're keeping a large measure of the jobs here; we could've lost more.”

Roeder noted that the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board recently approved an $84 million 168,000-square-foot patient tower at the CTCA's Midwestern Regional Medical Center, a 73-bed hospital in Zion.

Follow Andis Robeznieks on Twitter: @MHARobeznieks