Mount Sinai, the world-renowned Manhattan-based hospital and teaching facility, has filed an application with the state to undertake a $115 million expansion of its site in Queens. The proposal is gaining traction in the community as state officials continue to mull the proposal. Mount Sinai Hospital Queens is seeking regulatory approval to construct a four-story addition atop its main building, adding 95,000 square feet to the facility.
The proposal, filed in December, was prompted by a population boom in the Astoria/Long Island City area that has put a premium on hospital beds. Mount Sinai Hospital Queens is located at 25-10 30th Avenue in Astoria.
The present facility has 235 beds and handles 50,000 emergency cases a year, according to a recent hospital newsletter, a figure that the hospital says has grown by about 1,000 cases every year for the last several years. The proposed expansion would focus on the emergency department and surgery, according to Ian Michaels, a Mount Sinai representative.
The only other hospital open to residents in the area is the 545-bed Elmhurst Hospital Center - more than five miles away - that saw double-digit increases in its volume of patients in 2009 and 2010. Additionally, several Queens hospitals have closed in recent years, including St. John’s Queens Hospital in 2009 and Parkway Hospital in Forest Hills, at the end of 2008.
Mount Sinai Queens filed a Certificate of Need with the state Department of Health at the end of December, in which it requests a four-story addition to its building. The addition would accommodate a new emergency department.
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