The Mishawaka-based Franciscan Alliance plans to spend $8.4 million to open an administrative center in Greenwood, creating nearly 85 jobs in the next four years.

The Catholic health care system, formerly known as Sisters of St. Francis Health Services, will buy, remodel and equip the 96,505-square-foot freestanding building at 1040 Sierra Drive.

The administrative center—dubbed the Franciscan Ambulatory Business Office—will house all physician billing operations for the organization’s 13 hospitals in Indiana in Illinois. The Alliance operates three hospitals in the Indianapolis area.
 
Franciscan Alliance employs 18,200, including 556 physicians, and it expects to grow its physician team to more than 630 physicians next year. Hiring at the administrative center should begin in April as building renovations are made.

Indiana Economic Development Corp. offered the organization as much as $700,000 in performance-based tax credits based its job-creation plans.  The Johnson County Development Corp. coordinated local support for the project.

The hospital system is a not-for-profit entity owned by an order of nuns, the Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration.