Lenox Hill May Scrap Park Avenue Tower From Expansion Plan

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — Northwell Health may move forward with a plan to expand the Upper East Side's Lenox Hill Hospital without building a 490-foot-tall Park Avenue residential tower that drew the ire of neighborhood preservation groups and local elected officials, according to reports and a recent Northwell presentation.

Northwell Health presented an alternate plan to expand the hospital without building the Park Avenue tower during a community meeting hosted by Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer last week. The alternate proposal scraps the residential tower in favor of infill construction on parts of Lenox Hill's existing campus on Park Avenue and East 76th Street, according to the presentation.

Plans to build a 516-foot hospital tower on Lexington Avenue appear unchanged in the alternate proposal. The hospital would be the tallest in New York City and one of the tallest in the world. The New York Post was first to report on Northwell's new plans.

The Committee to Protect Our Lenox Hill Neighborhood — a neighborhood preservation group founded specifically to fight Northwell's project — called the removal of the residential tower "an important step in the right direction" in a statement released Tuesday. The group still intends to fight the size of the planned hospital tower on Lexington Avenue.

"We continue to call on Northwell to advance a sensible plan to modernize and upgrade Lenox Hill Hospital as a community hospital that respects the site’s zoning laws and the hospital’s location in a crowded residential neighborhood," the committee's statement reads.

The new hospital campus will not increase the number of beds at Lenox Hill, but instead create individual rooms for hospital patients. Hospital officials said that the new complex would account for increased congestion by moving ambulances off 77th Street and into the facility as well creating less obstructive loading docks on East 76th Street.

Other goals of the expansion include increasing the size of Lenox Hill's emergency department and creating state-of-the-art operating rooms for surgical procedures.

A spokesperson for Northwell Health said in a statement that it presented the alternative development plan at the request of Brewer and local City Councilmember Kieth Powers.

"No decision has been made as we are still in the process of studying the implications to the overall revitalization goals," Northwell Health spokesperson Barbara Osborn said in a statement. "We want to assure the community that we are listening to their concerns and, over the course of the remaining task force meetings, we will continue to work toward possible solutions as we plan for the future of this important institution."

In October, Community Board 8 voted to pass a resolution opposing Northwell Health's original plan by a vote of 36 to three, with one member not voting due to a potential conflict of interest. Board members were skeptical of the plan due to the size, 10-year construction timeline and proposed financing of the project through the development of private residences.