MSK Wants To Build Hospital Building Stalled By 9/11

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center presented their proposal Tuesday night to finally build a new hospital building that was in the works over 20 years ago, until the September 11 terror attacks forced them to shelve their plans.

On Tuesday, the hospital filed the proposal, first announced a year ago, to build a 31-story, 600-foot hospital on York Avenue between East 66th and 67th Streets.

That evening, MSK came before Community Board 8 in an early-stage presentation, which mostly received a warm reception from board members who often made unfavorable comparisons to another large rezoning request from a Lexington Avenue hospital also currently in progress.

If approved, the pavilion will total nearly 1 million square feet, with 28 operating suites and 202 inpatient beds, according to zoning documents.

Plans also include a skybridge across East 67th Street to connect the pavilion to MSK's main hospital, according to plans contingent on Transportation department approval.

While applauding some aspects of the presentation, members voiced concerns over the size and bulk of the proposed building as well as worries that the demolition of a MSK-owned, 336-unit residential building currently at the site would add pressure to an already historically tight housing market in the neighborhood.

A Plan Delayed By Terror

Memorial Sloan Kettering's proposal, called the MSK Pavilion, has been in the works since 2001, representatives said. The proposal involves finishing a large-scale rezoning that they said the world famous cancer center was in the process of over 20 years ago.

Their zoning hearing was originally scheduled for September 12, 2001, and MSK was subsequently asked to scale back their proposal to lighten the load for the city's Planning Department, which was overburdened with the task of rebuilding lower Manhattan.

"Obviously, that hearing never occurred," said Shelly Friedman, MSK's land use attorney.

"We voluntarily withdrew that application. It's totally addressed in the City Planning Commission report, that they expected us to come back at a time when the inpatient hospital was was more developed and evolved," Friedman said as he explained the background of the site's zoning history.

"That building is the Pavilion and that time is now," he said.

In seeking the completion of their long-ago zoning proposal, Friedman told the glad board that the hospital won't seek any zoning bonuses and that any as-of-right development potential for the main campus would be maxed out with this building.

"God Bless You"

Board members applauded what nearly everyone called an "excellent" presentation and quickly drew comparisons to a concurrent rezoning request from Lenox Hill Hospital at a site a few blocks north on Lexington Avenue.

That project, according to a February presentation to the same Community Board 8 committee, is slated to take 11 years to build. MSK predicts a max of six years to construct the Pavilion, with an opening date of 2030.

Board member Anthony Cohn said "God bless you," in comparison to the Lenox Hill timeline, a bulkier project by nearly 500,000 square feet.

"They're talking about twice as long for a building that is not significantly bigger at the end of the day," he said.

Cohn also applauded MSK for proposing more space-efficient hospital rooms, at 250-300 square feet each, and operating rooms ranging from 650-700 square feet.

"Just to say something nice to you again," Cohn interjected, "that's smaller than Lenox Hill wants their operating rooms and patient rooms to be."

Others also expressed gratitude that the proposal contains an underground parking garage for patients and visitors.

A Towering Proposal

But members were still concerned with the building's size, which would be even taller than the 400-foot tall Lenox Hill Hospital building.

Board member Elizabeth Rose questioned if the hospital couldn't redevelop other MSK sites instead and have two smaller buildings at a First Avenue site, which she called "far preferable," instead of one looming tower.

Hospital representatives said that the First Avenue site, the Schwartz Cancer Research Building — which was one of the building to emerge from the 2001 large-scale rezoning — was ruled out early on because the property contains facilities that couldn't be easily relocated, like radiology departments and the hospital's blood bank.

"That is the one building you do not want to see increase in height, too, if you're concerned about the shadows in St. Catharines," Friedman added, in a reference to another bruising neighborhood rezoning fight over the Blood Center.

"We did look very hard at our options, because quite honestly, we didn't want to have to take down the buildings that we're planning to take down," said acting hospital president, Dr. Jeff Drebin.

"Wretched Obamacare"

Size and bulk issues aside, other raised concerns over pressures on traffic and neighborhood infrastructure, and also on the hospital's commitment to serving New Yorkers.

One person who gave her name as Leah said that a friend's "wretched Obamacare" wasn't accepted by MSK years ago when she was seeking treatment.

"And I myself now have wretched Obamacare," she added.

"Shouldn't you all be making kind of enforceable undertakings to serve the people who are here? Not just people flying in from out of state or the out of the country who are well-heeled enough and have good enough insurance that you're willing to take them?" Leah asked.

While Drebin couldn't comment specifically on "Obamacare," he said that the hospital has worked in recent years to pass legislation to contract with Medicaid and Medicare managed care plans that previously refused to work with MSK.

"The vast majority of patients who we care for are from these five boroughs and to some extent, the tri-state area," Drebin said to Leah's other point.

More Housing Market Pressure

Many members also expressed worry about the removal of residential units in the neighborhood. To build the Pavilion, MSK would be forced to demolish a 270-foot, 336-unit building which currently houses staff, medical and doctoral students for the hospital and Weill Cornell Medical Center.

"Where are those people going?" asked Cohn.

Dr. Lisa DeAngelis, the chief medical officer at MSK who said she lives in the neighborhood and raised her family here, said that they have been anticipating the impact their plans will have on housing. MSK already purchased additional housing on Roosevelt Island, where the hospital has a building, she said. Additionally, MSK has two other residential locations in Lenox Hill and one in Yorkville.

But older residents, DeAngelis said, could be asked to move into market housing to ensure that younger workers and students have access to MSK-owned residential units.

Cohn said those people will certainly add to the neighborhood's overheated and competitive housing market, where prices have skyrocketed in recent year.

"By buying buildings and getting rid of housing here, given the housing shortage in the city... you are taking it away from people," said board member Alida Camp.

Ultimately both parties signaled a willingness to work through issues in the upcoming Community Board 8 MSK Task Force Meetings, five of which have already been planned, Cohn said.

"It's a problem and I think there are solutions that we can talk about during the during the task force," he added.

The first MSK Task Force meeting is scheduled for April 20.