November 4, 2022 – Cincinnati Children’s will construct 12 extended-stay apartments on its Liberty Campus in Butler County, which will be used by families of cancer patients treated at the onsite Proton Therapy Center.
Four single-story buildings will each contain three apartments, which will accommodate families who travel to Cincinnati Children’s for proton therapy. Such treatment can take four to six weeks, which requires temporary relocation for many families.
Cincinnati Children’s will lease the buildings for $1 to the nonprofit Bold & Brave Kids Foundation, which will operate the furnished and equipped apartments. They will be used solely by families who travel to the Proton Therapy Center, which treats children and adults for more than 30 types of cancer. (Bold & Brave Kids currently provides three subsidized units close to the Liberty Campus for patients traveling to Cincinnati Children’s for proton therapy and will similarly operate the 12 new onsite units.)
Liberty Township trustees approved the Cincinnati Children’s plan for the four new buildings at a meeting on November 1, 2022. Site preparation is to begin in November 2022, and construction is to start in January 2023. Apartments could be ready for families by late April 2023, depending on weather and availability of building materials.
Each unit will encompass about 1,300 square feet and include two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a full-size kitchen, a great room, a laundry room and a porch. Exteriors will be brick and lap siding. Cost of the four commercial buildings, which will occupy 3 acres owned by Cincinnati Children’s, is expected to be about $3.7 million.
The therapy works by extracting positively charged protons from hydrogen gas and accelerating them through a cyclotron at up to nearly two-thirds the speed of light. The protons are guided to the tumor site by powerful magnetic and electrical fields.