Harlemites Can Weigh In On Proposed Public Health Lab

HARLEM, NY — The city is moving forward with plans to build a new 10-story public health laboratory in Harlem, and members of the public will get the chance to weigh in on the project at an upcoming forum.

The proposal, first announced in 2018, would replace the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene's (DOHMH) existing lab on First Avenue and East 26th Street with a new, $400 million building on the Harlem Hospital campus.

Created to respond to public health emergencies, the lab has played a key role in the city's response to COVID-19, as well as past crises like Ebola, H1N1 and Legionnaires' disease.

A community forum about the new lab will be held Thursday, April 29 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., over Zoom. The event is sponsored by Community Board 10, DOHMH, and several local legislators.

The Harlem lab would sit facing 137th Street next to the hospital's Ronald Brown Ambulatory Care Center. It would include 5 lab floors and five administrative floors, as well as a 200-seat auditorium and a training lab, according to a fact sheet.

The lab would also include a clinic called "Harlem Express," offering screening for sexually transmitted infections with rapid results — modeled after the Chelsea Express facility on Ninth Avenue.

Construction would run between 2022 and 2025, with the public health lab opening at the end of 2025, the city said.

Few updates were given after the initial 2018 announcement, until last April, when the city filed permits to begin construction on the Harlem lab.

The existing public health lab is outdated and in need of upgrades, the city says, adding that the lab "is held to the strictest of standards and has never adversely impacted their neighbors or the community."

Spread over 200,000 square feet, the building will also offer science programs in partnership with neighborhood schools, and open up its auditorium for community use.