WP Hospital plans to demolish garage, construct new in-patient building

White Plains Hospital is preparing plans to demolish its parking garage on Davis Avenue, directly across from the hospital’s main entrance, along with commercial structures it owns that house the Magnotta’s Supermarket and a check cashing outlet in order to create space for the future construction of a new in-patient building.

The hospital plans to create interim at-grade parking to at least temporarily replace parking that would be lost with demolition of the garage. The interim parking would be on land the hospital owns, part of which at one time was home to automobile dealerships that fronted along E. Post Road. It already uses a section of that parcel for parking with about 140 spaces available.

William Null, who is chairman of the hospital’s board of directors and an attorney with the White Plains-based law firm Cuddy & Feder gave the White Plains Common Council a preliminary presentation on the hospital’s plans. He said that they first are concentrating on developing plans to be submitted shortly to create the at-grade parking facility. He said that plans for the in-patient building will be coming in the future, possibly by the end of the year.

“Keeping current and keeping our facilities up-to-date and expanding as we go along is critically important to maintaining our position in the health care industry in the Hudson Valley,” Null said. “We’ve been pushing the envelope to try to stay at a point where we’re able to deliver top flight medical care and health care for the city and the region.”

He described the Davis Avenue garage as being beyond its useful age. Null said it has space for about 550 cars and that having adequate parking is important for addressing the needs of patients and visitors as well as staff and doctors.

The site where the new parking would be created is bounded by Rathbone, Maple and S. Lexington Avenues and E. Post Road.

Null said that the new in-patient building would be intended to move the hospital toward being able to offer more private rooms for patients as well as expanding the hospital’s emergency department. He said that the hospital’s existing emergency department was designed for 40,000 to 50,000 patient visits a year and it now already is at 72,000 visits a year. He said new operating rooms also would be included in the new in-patient building.

“It’s a complex building to design and particularly given the need to phase it so that we can keep the hospital in operation, so we’re working on it,” Null said. “We’re not going to have those plans ready to be reviewed until end of this year, like winter, late fall this year. What we’re looking to do is to submit this plan and to essentially be able to make the Davis garage site ready so we can demolish that and have parking on this site.”

Null said that extensive landscaping would surround the at-grade parking to help screen and beautify the site and that the hospital is very sensitive to the neighbors around the site. He said the hospital hopes to have plans for the interim parking project ready for the city to begin reviewing next month and the interim parking would have to be operational before the garage demolition takes place.