Enter $20 million in infrastructure that includes a new 33,000-square-foot energy center on the northeast side of campus with new boilers, generators, sewer and steam lines. St. John's opened its new state-of-the-art energy center in 2003.

Located between the Marian Center and St. John's Clinic-National, the new center serves most of the facilities on the campus.

"Our previous boilers were  52 years old; they had reached the end of their life and couldn't service the new parts of the hospital," Facilities Vice President Bill Syler said. "With the new energy center, we have the capacity to produce up to 10,000 tons of cooling with newer and more reliable sources than we had before."

The new generator plant is half the size of the previous facility. One of the five generators that previously powered the hospital during outages and tests was two stories tall and was built in 1939 as an aircraft carrier engine.

"It, along with countless others was taken out of mothballs in the early 1960s, refurbished, and sold to hospitals around the country," Syler said. "The engine was so big it was hard to work on."

St. John's is Springfield City Utilities' largest single customer, paying around $220,000 a month in utilities (natural gas, water, electrical and sewer.)

When the master plan is complete, the campus will have grown by nearly 440,000 square feet  which will bring monthly utilities up to an estimated $300,000 per month.

New equipment will be able to save money by shaving electrical, which means when a certain point of usage is reached, St. John's will produce its own power for part of the load.