With site preparation work already underway, White Plains Hospital on May 5 held a groundbreaking ceremony for its new 10-story 475,000 square foot building that will include a new emergency room, new operating rooms, new patient rooms and more. The Expansion facility is expected to open in January of 2028. The project is expected to cost $750 million.
During the event, Susan Fox, the hospital’s president and CEO, said that discussions have been underway with White Plains regarding a new parking garage for about 2,000 cars that would be situated on the north side of Post Road and would have a pedestrian bridge connecting to the hospital.
The parcel where the new building will be constructed had been occupied by the hospital’s garage and commercial buildings fronting on S. Lexington Avenue. The site is bounded by S. Lexington Avenue, E. Post Road, Davis Avenue and Maple Avenue. The hospital expansion also is expected to involve demolition of the existing medical office building at 170 Maple Ave. in about two years.
The city has closed a portion of Davis Avenue north of the hospital’s entrance driveway. Before the groundbreaking ceremony, the section of Davis Avenue leading up to the driveway was renamed Divney Way in honor of engineer ad planner Michael Divney, who in 2010 had been named chairman of the hospital’s Board of Directors.
The new building will feature 240 single-bedded patient rooms as the hospital moves to make all of its patient rooms single occupancy. The hospital would be equipped with 436 total licensed beds.
The new emergency room would be more than twice the size of the current emergency department. The current emergency room handles about 80,000 patients a year but was designed for half that number. There would be new operating rooms and a new main lobby in the building.
The fourth floor of the new building would be dedicated to housing mechanical and air-handling equipment in a 24-foot-high space immediately above the new operating rooms.
William Null, chairman of the hospital’s Board of Directors, said, “Demand for our services continues to grow, which is why this expansion is so important. Patents see our commitment to quality and know they’re receiving the best care here .Our laser focus on quality has been validated by many national organizations.”
“Today is a very exciting day in the history of White Plains Hospital,” Fox said. “We are not just breaking ground on a new building, we are laying the foundation for a future Hospital that will ensure we will continue to provide the highest-quality care for generations to come.”
She said that as the tertiary hub of care for the Montefiore Health System in the Hudson Valley for the past 10 years, the hospital has “successfully added and expanded advanced programs and services here, so our neighbors do not need to travel to receive high quality care. Together with our partners from Montefiore, we have changed healthcare in Westchester and the Hudson Valley and today we are changing the skyline along East Post Road.”
Fox said she received permission to reveal some details about the parking garage that is being planned. While noting that the old hospital garage had to be torn down to make way for the new building and that an at-grade parking lot has been constructed, Fox said that discussions have been underway with city officials including Mayor Tom Roach and Corporation Counsel John Callahan for a new garage on the north side of Post Road that would connect to the hospital by a pedestrian bridge. It would offer about 2,000 spaces for hospital staff and users of the hospital.
“Everybody wants to know about parking,” Fox said “So important to our work force is to be able to get here. So important to our patients is to be able to get here conveniently and we have had a parking shortage for the entire time that I’ve been here.”
Fox thanked everyone who has been working to help make a new garage a reality and she expressed a hope that it could be open by November 2027.