Health care market sparks a ‘reawakening’ in Westchester

At Simone Healthcare Development, a leading company at meeting the growing demand for medical office space in the metropolitan area, president H. Guy Leibler sees “a reawakening” in Westchester County. “It”™s exciting and it”™s all within our grasp, if we don”™t screw it up,” he told an audience in Tarrytown.

Leibler spoke at the Westchester County Association”™s recent Health Tech ”™14 conference, where some of the key players ”“ biotechnology scientists, real estate executives, physicians and health care executives ”“ described the technological innovations, hospital consolidations and changing health care market driving that reawakening in the county. The two-day conference drew more than 600 people.

Leibler witnessed the county”™s office construction boom in the 1970s and ”™80s when he worked for and eventually headed the Schulman Realty Group, a pioneer developer of Westchester”™s corporate office parks. Now he sees an opportunity here to build “a whole new range of facilities” for health care providers and the growing number of biotech companies in the county.

Leibler cited the new hospital alliances being formed here ”“ including White Plains Hospital with Montefiore Health System and Lawrence Hospital Center with New York-Presbyterian Hospital ”“ as a welcomed trend. “What we”™re seeing is not only new vision, but we”™re seeing that new vision coming with new capital,” he said. Instead of hospitals that are “talent-rich but cash-poor,” Westchester has become an expansion territory for well-financed institutions.

But the cooperation of municipalities is needed to accommodate change. Municipal boards need to understand “that health care now comes in a package. It”™s a retail business,” he said.

“Let”™s not forget what practically killed Westchester,” Leibler said. “We need to get the zoning and the planning officials on board and understand what we need to accomplish.” The speed of change in the life sciences sector has been so fast that municipal officials can”™t stay informed, he said.

In addition to medical and biotech office and laboratory space, municipalities need to accommodate new housing development for employees at companies like Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. in Greenburgh, the state”™s largest biotech employer, which reported $250 million in overall profits in the first quarter this year.

Speaking on a Health Tech ”™14 panel on innovations in health care, Neil Stahl, senior vice president of research and development sciences at Regeneron, said the company”™s workforce grew 20 percent in 2013 and has continued to grow this year. Now with 2,500 employees, Regeneron expects to employ more than 4,000 workers by 2018, he said.

“If we can”™t build it, they won”™t come,” Leibler said of those biotech and health care companies. “We can do it; we”™ve got to do it fast. If we don”™t do this in the next five years, we miss the opportunity.”

Tiffany Phipps, senior project manager for BioMed Realty Trust Inc. at the company”™s 1.1-million-square-foot Landmark at Eastview life sciences campus where Regeneron is based, said Westchester County is priced “very competitively” with major biotech centers such as San Diego and Cambridge, Mass. But there is a gap here between small accelerator space for startup companies ”“ such as the 4,500-square-foot biotech business incubator scheduled to open this year at New York Medical College in Valhalla ”“ and space leased by large companies like Regeneron. Regeneron occupies 700,000 square feet on the Landmark campus, where BioMed Realty is building two buildings with an additional 300,000 square feet of office and lab space for its anchor tenant.

Phipps said the county needs to fill that space gap for midsize companies.

Speaking on a panel discussing how hospitals are adapting to health care”™s changing landscape, Dr. Laura Forese, president of New York-Presbyterian Healthcare System in Manhattan, saw no rosy future for independent community hospitals.

“I think the economics today make it exceptionally difficult. ”¦ It”™s going to get more difficult,” she said. Community hospitals need to find the right partner and the right arrangement with a larger, better financed hospital, she said.

Forese said “some healthy dose of skepticism” is needed as to how patients are benefiting from those hospital consolidations around the country.

David Putrino, director of telemedicine and virtual rehabilitation at Burke Medical Research Institute in White Plains, voiced an exuberant optimism heard often at the Health Tech ”™14 conference.

“I keep having to pinch myself with what”™s going on in Westchester County,” he said. “It”™s clear to me that Westchester is going to be a leader in health innovation ”“ and boy, do we need it.”