Hospital Project Bonds Get OK: Action By City Agency Boosts St. Peter’s, Albany Med Expansions

By Alan Wechsler, Albany Times Union, N.Y.

Sep. 21–ALBANY — Hospital care in the region got a considerable boost Thursday afternoon, when the city’s Industrial Development Agency agreed to issue bonds for a massive project at St. Peter’s Hospital and a smaller expansion at Albany Medical Center.

The hospitals will pay for the projects, but the involvement of the IDA gives them tax savings for various parts of the work.

St. Peter’s, which has been in the midst of ongoing construction since 2005, now plans to float a total of $235 million in bonds to pay for the next step: a project scheduled to begin in October and end in 2012. It includes a new 2-story main entryway and a six-story building — known as the patient pavilion — that would add single-occupancy patient rooms, an outpatient center for laparoscopic surgery and medical imaging, and a cardiac center that would combine services now scattered around the hospital.

The project would change the face of St. Peter’s by adding a triangular building at the corner of New Scotland Avenue and Manning Boulevard and a covered patient drop-off at what will become the new main entrance behind the main building.

While the hospital is not adding beds, the project will make 70 percent of all patient rooms private. Right now, the hospital has about 30 percent single-occupancy rooms. Private rooms are believed to help patients recover faster.

The project will result in about 75 new jobs by the time it’s completed, officials said.

James Gavin, chief financial officer at the hospital, said St. Peter’s was working to increase its margins so as to be able to make the expected $18.6 million in yearly payments on the bonds that will start in 2011.

It has also set aside $40 million for the construction and is hoping to generate another $35 million through fundraising efforts that already have reached the halfway mark.

The hospital is overhauling all aspects of its revenue base in an effort to make services more efficient. “We have every reason to believe we’ll continue to be successful and be fully prepared to pay the debt,” Gavin said.

Albany Medical Center plans to build a 51,000-square-foot addition to its F building that will cost $15.6 million. The project will start in October and, when completed in about a year, will create a “swing space” that will allow the hospital to refurbish existing space by moving departments into the new area.

Members of the IDA approved the bonding requests for both projects after hearing no opposition during a public hearing. Wechsler can be reached at 454-5469 or by e-mail at awechsler@timesunion.com.

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