Stamford Hospital broke ground on its future home yesterday, ceremonially marking the start of construction on its new 640,000-square-foot, $450 million medical tower in Stamford’s West Side.
The new hospital is expected to be completed by 2016 after the Stamford Health System adjusted the construction timetable last June to allow for a single-phase construction project. Previously, the new hospital was projected to take between 10 and 15 years to build at a cost of $575 million.
Foundation and groundwork has been under way for just under a year on West Broad Street, the site of the future 11-story hospital tower. Plans also call for two existing buildings on the hospital’s 30-acre campus to be razed.
Stamford Hospital CEO Brian G. Grissler called the groundbreaking, which was attended by numerous hospital and public officials, “a major milestone in a plan that has been many years in the making.”
“Our goal is to create an environment that will meet the changing needs of patients and their families, as well as our doctors and clinical staff, tomorrow and well into the future,” Grissler said in a prepared statement. “It will be a significant transformation from the current traditional and institutional feel to a more calming, welcoming environment.”
The new hospital will feature an emergency department with separate treatment areas for trauma, cardiac, urgent, behavioral health and pediatric patients. The changes will double the number and size of exam rooms contained within the current emergency department. The intensive care unit will be expanded, and a new pediatric unit will be adjacent to the current neonatal intensive care unit.
Also included in the plans are larger surgical suites to accommodate the latest technology, patient care units with all private rooms and private bathrooms, centralized nurses’ stations and dedicated family spaces on each floor.
