Westchester Medical Center officials this week will ask a state Health Department council to approve an approximately $206 million construction project on the Valhalla medical campus that is the target of a legal challenge by Mount Pleasant town officials in a state court in Westchester.
Mount Pleasant”™s attorney in the case said on Friday the town had not been aware of WMC”™s scheduled Thursday appearance before a project review committee of the state Health Department”™s Public Health and Health Planning Council. The town will seek a postponement of the Health Department proceeding on WMC”™s application for a Certificate of Need required for the project, said Darius P. Chafizadeh, a partner at Harris Beach PLLC in White Plains.
The full Public Health and Health Planning Council is scheduled to vote on the project at it Feb. 12 meeting.
Westchester County Health Care Corp., which operates the 652-bed Westchester Medical Center, has proposed to build an ambulatory care pavilion and a new seven-story addition to the main hospital building on the county”™s Grasslands campus. The addition will be fitted out as shell space when built but will be used in the future for inpatient rooms, hospital officials said.
The construction project also would include private physician offices at an estimated cost of $74.8 million. The ambulatory care pavilion is projected to cost approximately $119.2 million and the shell tower approximately $11.9 million.
WMC in its application said the new ambulatory care building will allow the hospital to focus its outpatient care at one pavilion to create “a more efficient environment, streamlining patient care.” Â The outpatient center will add 29 full-time-equivalent jobs by the first year of operation and 50 full-time jobs after three years, according to WMC”™s application.
The state Health Department has recommended the Public Health and Health Planning Council approve WMC”™s application contingent upon the Valhalla hospital meeting financial, state hospital building code and construction schedule requirements.
Health Department officials said the 22-month construction project must begin by March 15 and be completed by Jan. 15, 2017.
Both the Health Department and Westchester Medical Center in its project application did not address the lawsuit filed in June by the town of Mount Pleasant in state Supreme Court in White Plains.
Town officials argued the project should be subject to town zoning and review and that the medical center had done no “meaningful” review of the project”™s environmental impact as required by state law. Westchester Medical Center officials last May announced the project would have no significant environmental impact.
A Westchester Medical center attorney in a counterclaim invoked a “balancing of public interests” test established in New York case law when arguing that the health care project is exempt from town authority and scrutiny. There have been no further court proceedings on the lawsuit since August.
Chafizadeh, the town”™s attorney in the case, was not aware of the Health Department council”™s scheduled project review last week when contacted by the Business Journal. He said he will seek an adjournment of the WMC”™s application to the state.
“The town of Mount Pleasant continues to believe that any development on the Westchester Medical Center property, including the proposed development of ”˜for-profit”™ professional office space for medical professionals, is subject to the town”™s local zoning laws,” Chafizadeh said. The hospital”™s application for a certificate of need from the Health Department “is premature and should be postponed,” he said.
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