The Koch Center at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Covid-19 isn’t expected to slow the pace of health care construction in New York City.
A new report from the New York Building Congress projects spending to increase 38% through 2023 compared with the previous four-year period.
The city’s hospitals and other medical providers spent $6.8 billion on construction projects from 2016 to 2019, and that spending is expected to total $9.4 building from 2020 to 2023, the Building Congress said.
“Capital expenditures are expected to increase in every borough, except for Staten Island, where there are fewer projects in the pipeline,” the report said. “While Manhattan is anticipated to lead in total growth, Brooklyn and the Bronx are expected to have the greatest relative growth, more than doubling their health care construction spending.”
Among the projects expected to fuel that spending are Northwell Health’s planned $2 billion redevelopment of Lenox Hill Hospital, Mount Sinai Health System’s construction of a smaller Beth Israel campus and outpatient health care facilities, and NYC Health and Hospitals’ more than $900 million plan to rebuild Coney Island Hospital in part to repair damage from Superstorm Sandy.
Major recently completed projects include New York–Presbyterian’s $1.1 billion, 734,000-square-foot Koch Center for ambulatory care and Memorial Sloan Kettering’s $1.5 billion outpatient cancer center along the East River, which also bears David Koch’s name. NYU Langone Health opened the 830,000-square-foot Kimmel Pavilion in 2018.
The Building Congress said it expects the pandemic will lead hospitals to look to be able to quickly increase their capacity to treat more patients, especially those who are critically ill. Some of those features might include larger medical gas connections to access oxygen and more negative-pressure rooms that can help control infections. An emphasis on ventilation standards and air filtration might play a greater role in future projects as well, the report said.
On the outpatient side, the report indicated that increased interest in telemedicine could lead to changes in clinic design to accommodate that purpose.
Several projects in the life sciences are underway. The report tallied $1.9 billion in projects slated to add more space for life sciences companies, including laboratories and offices, in Harlem, Midtown East and Long Island City. Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Deerfield Management, Janus Property Group, GFP and King Street Properties are among the developers leading the projects.
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