Advocate Trinity Hospital is being built at 8000 S DuSable Lake Shore Dr.
It's the first new hospital built in the area in more than a century. The new facility will eventually replace Trinity Hospital on 93rd Street.
Eighteen months from its announcement, hospital and elected officials gathered on Tuesday to break ground on the 23-acre property.
"People want care. They want the same care on the South Side than they could get on the North Side," Advocate Health Board Member Michele Baker Richardson said.
"It could be your grandma, it could be your grandfather, it could be your uncle, could be your sister, could be your children. That is who we are doing this here today for," CEO of Advocate Health Care Gene Woods said.
Replacing the 115-year-old hospital that is Trinity, the new, 52-bed, state-of-the-art lakefront facility will sit on part of what was once the site of U.S. Steel South Works.
Mayor Brandon Johnson called it "a transformative moment for our city."
It is transformative not only because of the hospital, but what its construction means for the entire area surrounding South Shore.
The new facility standing as an anchor, alongside the future Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park, expected to open two years from now.
"This site has been vacant for over 30 years. And when the Steel Mills closed, the jobs went," Seventh Ward Ald. Greg Mitchell said.
Trinity will remain open until the new hospital is complete and fully operational.
The new hospital is expected open during summer 2029.