Boro Prez Levine Conditionally Approves $2 Billion Lenox Hill Hospital Expansion

Borough President Mark Levine has conditionally endorsed Northwell Health’s $2-billion plan to overhaul the Upper East Side’s Lenox Hill Hospital; the plan will now go before the City Planning Commission for 60 days of formal review. If commissioners approve the project, it will go to the City Council for a final sign-off.

The project, which is projected to take nine years and would consolidate the hospital’s 10 buildings into a 436-foot-tall tower on the Lexington Avenue side, has divided the community somewhat. Community Board 8, which represents the area, last month officially advised against the current proposal; a group of local advocates operating under the “Save Lenox Hill” moniker have stridently come out against it, as well.

Notably, Levine says that his (similarly advisory) stamp of approval came with two new significant commitments from Northwell: the creation of a local mental-health outpatient clinic in the neighborhood, as well as the convening of a “construction task force”—comprising CB8 members and elected officials—that would monitor the health impacts of the project’s projected duration.

The new mental-health clinic would have a “projected capacity of 30,000 patients a year,” Levine’s office told Straus News. “The need for this type of care is severe in the United States, with reports that 55 percent of adults experiencing mental illness do not get treatment. For children, the numbers are even more stark: Twenty percent of children are reported to have a mental, emotional, or behavioral disorder, and 60 percent of youth with major depression receive no mental health treatment.”

The construction task force, meanwhile, would reportedly try to address “noise, air quality, and timeline issues” in a “collaborative” way.

Levine also said that he is “urging” Northwell to further lower the project’s proposed height, as well as reduce its overall construction time. He’s also urging that the proposed hospital’s single-use rooms become available for low-income patients, that the ambulance bay not “back out” into 77th Street, and that Northwell establish clear links with community organizations. These points clearly signal alignment with some of the demands made by local advocates.

However, Levine also said that he agrees with much of Northwell’s rationale for the hospital’s overhaul. In draft comments shared with Straus News, he explained why he believes his approval is warranted: Lenox Hill Hospital’s main building “is out of compliance with current zoning. The aging facilities no longer meet present-day needs. Half of the current emergency-department beds are located in the hallway, patients-per-day exceeds capacity, and patients are unloaded from ambulances in the street, leading to severe congestion.”

Save Lenox Hill issued a release expressing a measure of gratitude that Levine had “heard the concerns” of local advocates such as themselves, calling Northwell’s project “so out of scale.”

“We applaud the Borough President for recognizing the most serious challenges this project is facing in terms of how it will negatively impact the community. Once construction gets underway on something like this, it is very difficult to pull the plug. The neighborhood will be permanently transformed into something unrecognizable,” Save Lenox Hill’s Stephanie Reckler said in a statement.

In a statement provided to Straus News, Northwell Health President Dr. Daniel Baker said that “Manhattan Borough President Levine consistently champions the best interests of his constituents. Lenox Hill Hospital stands as a critical healthcare resource for both the local community and all New Yorkers—now and for future generations.”