An artist rendering of the proposed pavilion complex at Vassar Brothers Medical Center.
A proposed $466 million, nearly 700,000-square-foot development at Vassar Brothers Medical Center could be the largest construction project in the history of the city of Poughkeepsie, hospital officials said when unveiling plans on Thursday for the medical campus expansion.
Founded in 1887, Vassar Brothers is the flagship hospital of Health Quest, the mid-Hudson Valley health care organization that also operates Northern Dutchess Hospital in Rhinebeck and Putnam Hospital Center in Carmel.
The medical center on the Hudson River in Poughkeepsie plans to build a seven-level, 696,000-square-foot inpatient pavilion with 264 private rooms for medical and surgical patients and 30 intensive-care rooms. The new pavilion, which will connect to the existing 365-bed hospital facility, also will include an emergency department with 66 treatment rooms and new operating rooms.
A Vassar Brothers Medical Center spokesman said the hospital’s total number of beds will not change with the new pavilion.
The project also will include a 240-seat cafeteria with outdoor veranda, a 265-space campus parking addition, a 12-bay materials loading dock and a rooftop helipad for medical transport. Health Quest officials said the hospital has filed a certificate of need with the state Department of Health and expects to gain the state agency”™s required approval of the project by May 2016. The approximately 2 1/2 year construction project is expected to be completed and the pavilion opened to patients by January 2019.
The $466 million project will be financed with private hospital funds and hospital bonds, according to Health Quest officials. The Foundation for Vassar Brothers Medical Center will conduct a project fundraising campaign.
Designed by RTKL Associates Inc., an international architectural firm with headquarters in Baltimore, Md., the pavilion will have a distinctive shape aligned with the aesthetic of the Hudson River, according to principal project architect Steve Stokes. The private rooms will more than double the space that a patient has in the hospital”™s existing semi-private rooms. The pavilion will incorporate sustainable-design elements and is expected to receive green-building certification.   Â
“Vassar Brothers Medical Center will transform patient care and the patient and family experience in the Hudson Valley with this project,” said Robert Friedberg, president of Vassar Brothers Medical Center. “Making that transformation require state-of-the-art facilities to provide patients with the privacy and healing environment they deserve.”
Speaking at the Thursday press conference, Dutchess Count Executive Marcus J. Molinaro said the hospital expansion will create jobs in a health care industry that “has long been and economic engine in the county” and will have “a ripple effect throughout our community.”
“This historic undertaking will not only improve the quality of lives for county residents, but it will also mark Dutchess County as a leader in the region in patient care,” said Molinaro. “Local patients will not have to travel throughout the state ”“ or even the Northeast ”“ to receive the high quality of care to which they”™ve become accustomed.”
