Ever since the 2008 recession struck, businesses have held tight to their cash reserves and delayed any capital investments.
Hospitals in Westchester County, however, have proven the exception to the rule as major new projects and renovations have been unveiled from Cortlandt Manor and Mount Kisco to White Plains and Yonkers.
In the past month alone, Blythedale Children”™s Hospital in Valhalla opened a $65 million inpatient building and the Hudson Valley Hospital Center celebrated its new $12 million cancer center.
Those come on top of facilities opened this year by WestMed Medical Group in Yonkers and Rye, a newly renovated emergency room at White Plains Hospital and proposals by Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Lawrence Hospital Center to build facilities and expand old ones in Harrison and Bronxville, respectively.
Patrick Lynch, president and principal of Hawthorne-based O”™Dea Lynch Abbattista Consulting Engineers P.C., said there has been a noticeable rise in health care-related construction in the county.
“From our perspective, we”™ve certainly been talking to more people about health care,” Lynch said. “We”™ve developed in that area the last seven, eight years a little more, but the last couple of years there has definitely been a bigger push.”
Lynch said his firm, which works in all areas of building systems, analysis, design and commissioning and which specializes in the implementation of energy-efficient systems, has seen a steady volume of calls from companies in the health care field.
“It”™s an area where there”™s definitely a lot of activity, so it seems like a good place to be,” he said, adding that the market for health care developments has been highly competitive in Westchester for consultants. “From our particular perspective, we are looking to continue to grow that sector of our practice.”
For the most part, medical providers and health care organizations have been financially well-managed over the past several years and are now reaping the rewards, said Anne Locke, chief operating officer and senior vice president of AKRF Inc., a New York City-based environmental, planning and engineering consultant that has offices in White Plains and several other cities on the East Coast.
“The well-funded medical centers have taken advantage of being well-funded at a time when business is down for a lot of people,” Locke said. “They have been able to develop when others haven”™t, which is good for the contractors out looking for work and I think it”™s great for the economy.”
Over the past year, AKRF has worked on several projects in Westchester and New York City for Memorial Sloan-Kettering, New York Presbyterian Hospital, New York University, the Mount Sinai Center for Science and Medicine, and St. Vincent”™s Catholic Medical Centers of New York, in addition to several other projects that Locke said have not been publicly announced as of yet.
She said that the allure of the New York City and Westchester regions lies in the abundance of capital, in the presence of a highly educated workforce to fill openings and in a construction industry that is hungry for work.
“It furnishes a lot of jobs for a lot of people in the construction industry and it”™s really good for our economy to have all of those jobs in the biomedical field.” Locke said that 2012 is projected to be another strong year for the health care industry in terms of new developments.
Despite the abundance of new medical centers in the county, Hudson Valley Hospital Center spokeswoman Victoria Hochman said the demand for the hospital”™s services has remained strong.
“We”™re proceeding and we hope that we”™re going to fill a need here in the Hudson Valley for quality cancer care. We”™ve had success so far, transforming from a community hospital to a medical center for the Hudson Valley ”¦ so it”™s been a big transformation.”
