Lenox Hill’s $2.5-Billion Expansion Aims High

Lenox Hill Hospital is planning a colossal $2.5-billion expansion beginning with a new 41-story residential building on part of the hospital’s Upper East Side property. The 490-foot-tall condominium tower will sit on the corner of East 76th Street and Park Avenue and include about 200 units.  

A second 30-story tower will be built on the opposite Park Avenue corner at East 77th Street. 

The building will feature a new Mother-Baby Hospital, increasing the emergency room to nearly four times its current size to 56,000 square feet, as well as new operating rooms, and patient rooms. 

Plans call for a total of 1.3 million square feet, up from the hospital’s current 780,000 square feet at 100 East 77th Street.

Lenox Hill plans to build on its reputation for maternity care—Beyoncé delivered her first child at the hospital in 2012—with a new Mother-Baby Hospital, which will have a separate Park Avenue entrance. The hospital will add labor and delivery suites and expand its neonatal intensive care unit.

Northwell is also building a block-long, 250,000-square-foot outpatient care facility on Third Avenue between 76th Street and 77th Street. That facility will include a cancer and ambulatory surgery center, as well as medical offices.

Off-street ambulance bays for six ambulances, larger, deeper loading docks, subway station improvements, an atrium and other publicly accessible spaces are also part of the ambitious project.

“Lenox Hill Hospital is one of the most storied institutions in Manhattan, serving communities throughout the city for over 160 years,” said Michael Dowling, president and chief executive officer of Northwell Health, adding that the residential tower was added to “offset costs for rebuilding the hospital.” 

"We have spoken to some of the top real estate people," Dowling said. "That building would throw off a substantial amount of money."  

Lenox Hill's campus occupies a city block from East 76th Street to East 77th Street between Lexington and Park avenues. Its campus is made up of 10 buildings—the newest one built in 1972.

The project will take an estimated six to eight years to complete, and has been broken up into three phases to allow for the continued operation of hospital facilities while the new development is constructed. 

Northwell Health expects to begin construction on the first tower next year. 

Since acquiring Lenox Hill Hospital in 2010, Northwell has spent more than $200 million on renovations. 

But to make the facility's patient rooms private, rather than multi-bed, and to add technology to its operating rooms, a more complete overhaul is needed. 

It will cost approximately $2.5 billion to completely rebuild the iconic Upper East Side institution, which was founded in 1857.

Northwell Health is the largest private employer in the state, with 68,000 employees.