Due To Pandemic, New Southampton Hospital Likely Still Five Years Away At Best But Remains On Track

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected plans for a state-of-the-art new hospital on the Stony Brook Southampton college campus, for better and worse.

The most obvious impact: A need to focus on treating virus outbreaks has delayed the project by as much as two years, with major fundraising still not underway. Original hopes for a 2023 groundbreaking on a new $365 million facility to replace Stony Brook Southampton Hospital — to be located on the 84-acre college campus in Shinnecock Hills — have been pushed to 2025 at the earliest, Chief Administrative Officer Robert Chaloner said this week. Construction likely will take another two years, putting 2027 as a best-case opening date.

But Chaloner also noted that design conversations have continued during the pandemic, and the crisis made an impression on what a medical facility should look like post-pandemic — insights that otherwise might not have been incorporated before the delays.

“We’ve learned a hell of a lot over the last two years,” Chaloner said on Friday, citing lessons learned about infection control and the layout of both emergency rooms and regular patient spaces. “The world has changed in health care pretty dramatically. And now we can take all of those lessons and build them.”

He added, “So, while I’m frustrated we’re not further along than I’d like to be, I’m also appreciative of the fact that we’ve … let’s take that deep breath and say, okay, what do we really need? And what we really need today is different than what we really needed prior to COVID.”

Last week, Dr. Maurie McInnis, who became Stony Brook University’s sixth president in July 2020, said the hospital on the school’s Shinnecock Hills campus remains a “top priority,” along with a planned emergency room facility in East Hampton.

The latter project is on a much more aggressive pace. Slated to cost between $35 million and $40 million, the East Hampton satellite emergency facility received a $10 million state grant, and by the end of 2021, the philanthropic campaign had raised another $27.5 million, Chaloner said: “We’re in great shape with that project.”

A ceremonial start to the work is expected this spring, as the project wraps up the regulatory process both locally and in Albany, with one key approval left: The Suffolk County Department of Health will need to approve the water connection to the building. Construction bids will be sought in the coming months, and work should begin by September, Chaloner said.

“That project, we’re going to scramble to try and get it done by summer 2023. That’s our target,” he said.

In the meantime, Chaloner said fundraising on the larger project has been in the “cultivation” process, with meetings held with more than 100 potential high-value donors — and a great deal of positive response. “Nobody turned me down, or board members down, for meetings. And we met with some very, very wealthy people … and had very strong and positive feedback that we need a new hospital. That they believe that the community would be better served by a new hospital.”

He added, “We’ve got all of the major donors that we believe are ultimately going to be interested aware of the project.”

COVID actually helped drive the point home: Many potential donors and their families were directly affected by the virus, he said.

Ultimately, Chaloner said, the goal is to raise about $250 million in philanthropic donations toward the project, with the rest of the cost covered by the sale of the existing hospital property in Southampton Village, and a bit of borrowing.

“Once you’ve got that first 50 percent, you can be confident the project’s going to go,” he said. “And so I’ve got, we’ve all got, some work to do over the next year to get those commitments.”

The pandemic delay, he said, was unfortunate, but not a source of great stress. “There’s no fixed deadline, other than I’d like to get us into a new facility as soon as possible,” he said. “But we want to take the time and do it right.”