Northwell’s Lenox Hill Hospital is forging ahead with a $2 billion plan to build a new medical tower on the Upper East Side as residents continue to voice opposition to a building that will block their views and oversaturate a neighborhood packed with hospitals.
Lenox Hill presented its longstanding proposal to build a 436-foot hospital tower on Lexington Ave. between 76th and 77th Streets at a community board meeting on Tuesday, outlining planned construction of 475 private rooms, 30 operating rooms and an expanded emergency department. Lenox Hill’s proposed 1 million-square-foot facility will take roughly nine years to build once it gets the required regulatory approvals, according to President Dr. Daniel Baker.
Residents of the Upper East Side criticized the hospital’s original proposal that was unveiled in 2019, which included a 500-foot tower and a residential building with 200 apartments. Their concerns prompted Northwell to scrap its apartment building and reduce the proposed height of the new hospital. The health system has proposed two options to either build a 436-foot tower or construct a 395-foot, wider building that would have enough space for all of its medical specialties.
Northwell has submitted its application to the Department of City Planning, and expects the agency to certify it on Feb. 3. The city’s approval will kick off a roughly seven-month land use review process that’s expected to garner criticism from residents of the surrounding community who don’t want Northwell to develop in their community.
Community members have long criticized the height of Lenox Hill’s proposed building and its nearly decade-long construction timeline, questioning Northwell’s decision to further develop on the Upper East Side as hospitals like Mount Sinai Beth Israel face closure in lower income neighborhoods around the city. The hospital has tried to mitigate these concerns, saying it has to keep up with shifting medical standards to compete in Manhattan’s saturated hospital market.
“Every hospital needs investment,” Baker told Crain’s. “This is partly why hospitals like [Beth Israel] fail, because you are not investing in the constant evolution.”
Lenox Hill first proposed its expansion nearly six years ago, claiming that the large-scale development was necessary to upgrade its aging infrastructure. The hospital, founded in 1867 as the German Dispensary of the City of New York, consists of 10 buildings of different heights that have been integrated into a single medical center. Northwell has spent more than $275 million on capital upgrades since it bought Lenox Hill in 2010, but says a larger renovation is required to ensure it can keep up with changes in the standards of care.
The community board will have 60 days to review Northwell’s proposal once it is certified by the city.
