Planning Board to lead review of hospital work

The Mary's Avenue Campus of HealthAlliance Hospital is to be expanded by 110,000 square feet.

They city Planning Board will be lead agency for environmental reviews of HealthAlliance of the Hudson Valley’s plan to expand its Mary’s Avenue Campus in Midtown.

The plan for the campus, formerly called Benedictine Hospital, includes creating 110,000 square feet of additional space that will feature a new emergency center, two medical-surgical floors, a new intensive care unit and a new endoscopy center.

The Mary’s Avenue project is part of a five-year HealthAlliance plan to consolidate all of its hospital services in Kingston into that facility and convert its other Midtown campus, on Broadway, into a “medical village.” The Broadway Campus is the former Kingston Hospital.

The Planning Board expects to hold a public hearing about the Mary’s Avenue Campus expansion before the end of the year.

“We’re looking at the December Planning Board meeting for that,” said City Planner Suzanne Cahill. “This is obviously a very strong need for the community, not only from an employment level but from a service level to our community.”

The plan has been revised from drafts submitted last year to increase the overall size of the new construction.

“Most of that is to have private beds and to increase the clinical area,” said project engineer Dennis Larios.

The cost of the project also has risen — from an original estimate of $88 million to a new total of $133.6 million. The $88 million is coming from the state. The rest is to be paid for through borrowing and fundraising.

HealthAlliance spokesman Gerry Harrington said there is no plan for the additional needed money to come directly from HealthAlliance’s parent company, Westchester Medical Center Health Network, but he said HealthAlliance’s affiliation with the downstate company gives the local operation more borrowing power.

Larios said the expansion of the Mary’s Avenue Campus will force the elimination of the site’s longtime helipad.

“There’s just no room to keep it there right now unless they put it on the roof, which [would cost] a million-and-a-half dollars,” the engineer said. “They are going to make arrangements to [fly] people out from a site nearby.”

HealthAlliance also operates Margaretville Memorial Hospital in Delaware County.