Bay Ridge

NYU Langone VP reveals plans for new Bay Ridge site

April 3, 2017 By Paula Katinas Brooklyn Daily Eagle
NYU Langone Senior VP Andrew W. Brotman says the first floor of the new health center at 6740 Fourth Ave. should be ready to open in the fall. Eagle photo by Paula Katinas
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A new health care center to be located in a former New York City Human Resources Administration (HRA) building in Bay Ridge should be ready to open before the end of the year, according to a top official at NYU Langone Health Systems, who spoke to the Brooklyn Eagle about the ambitious plans for the site.

Dr. Andrew W. Brotman, senior vice president and vice dean for clinical affairs and strategy for NYU Langone, said the first floor of the site at 6740 Fourth Ave. will likely be ready to start serving patients in the late fall.

The four-story building located on the corner of Fourth Avenue and Senator Street, which housed HRA services and then a city-run jobs center for many years, is being leased by NYU Langone from its owner, 6740 Owner LLC, for use as a multipurpose health center that will offer primary care and health screenings and will house doctor’s offices.

The goal is to provide a type of one-stop health care facility for patients, according to Brotman, who said primary care physicians as well as specialists will be working at the site.

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The new center will be staffed with 65 doctors, Brotman said. Brotman is also the chief clinical officer at NYU Langone.

The goal is to provide top-notch health care for outpatients in a non-hospital setting.

“We are undergoing changes in the delivery of health care in this country and are moving toward an ambulatory care system. More and more people like to go to non-hospital settings,” he told the Eagle in a phone interview.

The Fourth Avenue building will fit in with that model, Brotman said.

The site was selected for a number of reasons, he said. “It was available because the city was moving out,” he said. The building is also accessible to public transportation. It is located one block away from the Bay Ridge Avenue station on the R subway line and is close to two bus lines, the B9 and B64.

Another important factor is that the Fourth Avenue building is located less than a mile away from NYU Lutheran Medical Center, the NYU Langone-owned hospital at 150 55th St. in Sunset Park.

Meanwhile, NYU Langone, which entered into an agreement with the former Lutheran Medical Center to assume control of the hospital in 2014, is busy with plans for another major project: expanding NYU Lutheran. “We are expanding a lot of the campus at Lutheran,” Brotman said.

Last year, Joseph Lhota, the senior vice president and chief of staff at NYU Langone, filled Community Board 10 members in on the plans to build onto the hospital.

“Changes are coming,” Lhota said.

The plans include adding more space to the main hospital building and constructing a new ambulatory and outpatient facility in a site where a parking lot is now located on 56th Street between First and Second avenues.

The ambulatory surgery center would be connected to the main hospital via a bridge to be constructed between the two buildings, according to Lhota, who said an underground tunnel will also be built.

“Our goal is to build a home here in Brooklyn,” Brotman told the Eagle.

NYU Langone is also converting the former Long Island College Hospital site in Cobble Hill into a medical facility. NYU Langone currently operates an emergency room at that location.

“NYU Langone has 60 sites in Brooklyn,” Brotman said.

Thirty percent of NYU Langone’s patient base is from Brooklyn. The NYU Lutheran Family Health Centers, a chain of small clinics around Brooklyn, are an important part of the mix, he said.

NYU Langone has 210 sites in the five boroughs, Long Island and in Westchester. The more well-known facilities include: Tisch Hospital, the flagship acute-care facility; the Rusk Rehabilitation site; the Hospital for Joint Disease; and NYU Lutheran Medical Center.


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