Construction is under way at Norwalk Hospital for a $102 million expansion of the emergency department, cancer center and ambulatory service center.
The project, which will include a 95,000-square-foot structure adjoining the current buildings and 35,000 square feet of renovations, is being billed by the hospital as the largest expansion in its 120-year history.
Hospital executives, staff and benefactors broke ground on the Anne P. and Harold W. McGraw Jr. Center May 3 in what represents the second phase of the expansion. The first phase ”“ the addition of more than 200 parking spaces to the hospital”™s garage ”“ was completed about a year ago and cost about $20 million.
In addition to the construction of a pavilion that will house a lobby and patient registration functions, the project will double the size of the emergency department ”“ which will be renamed the Bauer Center for Emergency Care ”“ and involves upgrades to the ambulatory surgery center and digestive diseases center.
The upgraded emergency department will enable the hospital to triage and treat 65,000 patients a year. The current space was last renovated 15 years ago with the goal of treating 25,000 patients annually; however, it currently treats double that.
The hospital”™s cancer treatment center, which will be renamed the C. Anthony and Jean Whittingham Cancer Center, is on the opposite side of the campus. As part of the project, the center will be relocated to the new pavilion and completely rebuilt, a hospital spokeswoman said.
“We”™re already starting groundwork and roadways for the entrance to the new emergency department and the new cancer center, and once that is complete then we”™ll start building the new pavilion,” spokeswoman Carol Brennan-Smith said.
Brennan-Smith said it would be “business as usual” during the project, with all clinical areas up and running.
Turner Construction Co., a global firm headquartered in New York City, is principal contractor on the project that is set to be completed in 2015.
The last major addition to the hospital was completed in 1991, with subsequent renovation projects in 2004 and in 2006.
Hospital executives recognized the Harold W. McGraw Jr. Family Foundation for its $10 million contribution to the new pavilion, the Whittingham family of Stamford for its $2.5 million contribution and George and Carol Bauer of Wilton for their $2.5 million contribution.
[Editor’s note: An initial version of this article was published May 7.]
