NYHQ breaks ground for new wing and garage

New York Hospital Queens (NYHQ) officials recently kicked off a $200 million building campaign in time for the hospital’s 50th anniversary. The project, entitled “Major Modernization,” includes a new wing with 80 medical/surgical beds, an expansion of services including heart care and surgery facilities, and a new parking garage.
“In today’s precarious environment for hospitals, we are fortunate to embark upon a program that will expand healthcare access for the residents of Queens,” said Stephen S. Mills, President and Chief Executive Officer of NYHQ. “We believe that people must have high quality medical services, and trusted expertise - right in their own backyard.”
To commemorate the new campaign, the groundbreaking on Friday, February 9 was held on the site where the original hospital building opened its doors 50 years ago.
Construction on the new wing, which will be built on NYHQ’s existing property at the intersection of Main Street and Booth Memorial Avenue, will take 42 months to build, and the parking facility, which will have room for 372 cars and be open for hospital staff, visitors, and patients, will take 18 months.
In build the new west wing, the hospital’s zoning status had to be changed from an R4 to an R6 zone, to allow for lower density, bigger construction projects.
The price tag of the expansion is about $194 million, and most of the financing has come from the sale of Federal Housing Authority (FHA) Insured Dasny bonds. NYHQ is also seeking a loan from the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) to help pay for the construction, which will bring the hospital’s total number of beds to 519 and double the number of operating rooms to 10.
Elected officials, including Queens Borough President Helen Marshall, State Senators Toby Stavisky and Malcolm Smith, Assemblymember Ellen Young, and City Councilmember John Liu, praised the hospital’s efforts to add beds to Queens, where there is only one hospital bed per 1,000 residents, as compared to 7 beds for every 1,000 people in Manhattan.
The expansion also includes plans to create a new ambulatory surgery center, to update infrastructure within the existing campus, and to move all of the hospital’s cardiovascular services - doctor’s offices, operating rooms, and catheterization labs - onto one floor.
As part of the campaign, hospital officials have contacted Community Board 7 and local elected officials, to disperse information about the construction phases. In addition, NYHQ has setup a 24/7 hotline - 718-670-1713 - to deal with public concerns, and bulletins about the project will be posted online at www.nyhq.org.