Mount Sinai Queens Celebrates Milestone

QUEENS, N.Y. — Hospital officials, community leaders and elected officials celebrated the completion of the steel construction phase for a $125 million expansion at Mount Sinai Queens last Thursday.

During the celebration, hospital officials also announced that the entrance area to the Ambulatory Care Pavilion will be named after George S. Kaufman, chairman of the Kaufman Astoria Studios in Long Island City, N.Y., who made a sizeable donation to the project. The amount of the donation was not disclosed.

The project broke ground in October 2013. New York-based NK Architects and Davis Brody Bond, also headquartered in New York, designed the new addition. Construction is scheduled for completion in 2016 by Skanska USA, based in Parsippany N.J.

“It is fitting that today, we are creating a new chapter in Mount Sinai’s history right here in Queens,” said Kenneth L. Davis, MD, CEO and president of the Mount Sinai Health System, in a statement. “This area — where the hospital stands today — has been a healing ground and has provided health care services to the community for over 120 years. Today, we are proud to continue and improve upon that tradition.”
Mount Sinai’s expansion is a welcome sight to the western Queens area. NK Architects says on its website that the hospital’s transformation is intended to be a catalyst for transforming the complexity and scope of medical care offered to residents and that the goals of the project are to make a dramatic architectural statement of a high-tech, sophisticated and modern hospital.
The addition to Mount Sinai Queens will feature a new, five-story building with infrastructure in place to allow for a sixth floor if needed, along with a larger emergency department with 36 patient bays, new operating suites, multispecialty outpatient care, as well as advanced imaging and laboratory services. The Kaufman Astoria Studios Entrance will welcome visitors and their families to the Ambulatory Care Pavilion, which features high ceilings and natural light from a glass-paneled façade.
The addition also will incorporate a “drive-through” ambulance bay that will reduce the number of ambulances outside, as well as a separate walk-in entrance and new imaging suite. Seven new operating rooms will make a total of 10 OR suites in the hospital.
The hospital will also bring in new primary care physicians in internal medicine, family medicine, Ob/Gyn and pediatrics, as well as new cardiology, endocrinology, gastroenterology, general surgery, pulmonary, orthopaedics, thoracic and vascular surgery specialists.
“Mount Sinai Queens is transforming and leading health care in the 21st century, and our new building represents the model hospital for the future of medicine,” said Dr. David L. Reich, the hospital’s president and COO, in a statement. “We are seeing the gold standard rise here before our eyes, and it is fantastic to see.”