Thursday, May 3, 2012

$1.2 Billion NYU Facility to Create 10,400 Construction Jobs

NYU Hospitals Center has filed for state regulatory approval of a $1.2 billion project to build a new clinical facility, the Helen L. and Martin S. Kimmel Pavilion. The filing calls for a new 22-story, 830,200-square-foot building  to be located on the medical center's existing campus at East 34th Street between First Avenue and the East River, where the Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation and the Ronald O. Perelman Research buildings now stand.

The new hospital is designed to meet the changing demands of health care. With more patients treated outside hospitals, the new facility will be geared to the sickest ones, with more intensive care and intermediate care beds than the current configuration.

Between now and 2021, NYUHC projects it will have an 11% increase in patient discharges, to 27,000 patients annually. Its average occupancy rate will go to 81% from 71%. The average length of stay will fall to 5 days from 5.6.

If approved, the new pavilion will have 374 inpatient rooms with one bed each. That design could help the hospital's bottom line by helping it control costly infections and making patients feel better about their hospitalization—at a time when reimbursement will be based in part on patient satisfaction scores.

The total number of licensed beds is unchanged, as the medical center is asking the state Department of Health to decertify other beds currently used for medical/surgical, special, pediatric and rehabilitation patients.

The pavilion will have 32 advanced operating rooms and 39 non-inpatient beds for people who require observation but not hospitalization after a procedure. It also will house a children's hospital, the Hassenfeld Pediatric Center.

NYU said the project could generate some 10,400 construction jobs in New York City, $1.44 billion in economic output and 9,100 nonconstruction jobs.