NYU Langone Health plans new multibillion-dollar Melville hospital, Long Island’s first since 1980
NYU Langone Health plans to build Long Island’s first new hospital since 1980, spending billions of dollars on a more than 1 million-square-foot academic medical center in Melville.
The project, at 1 and 2 Huntington Quadrangle, includes an approximately 500-bed hospital, emergency department, ambulatory services and research laboratories, said Dr. Alec C. Kimmelman, CEO of the health system and dean of its NYU Grossman School of Medicine.
The medical school would also move from Mineola to the Melville campus, and NYU Langone would add housing for its students and employees.
The plan would significantly alter one of Long Island’s most important commercial corridors along Route 110, while shifting the health system’s operations away from Mineola, where NYU Langone’s presence has contributed to the village’s revitalization.
WHAT NEWSDAY FOUND
- The first new hospital on Long Island in nearly 50 years has been proposed for Melville by NYU Langone Health.
- The 500-plus bed hospital would be part of an academic medical center on 45 acres where two Huntington Quadrangle office buildings now sit, officials told Newsday.
- The center will cause the health system to reduce the number of inpatient beds at its Mineola hospital and also expand ambulatory and emergency services there.
The plan also comes as competing health systems expand their offerings to Long Island patients.
NYU Langone will need multiple state and local government approvals to move forward, including from the state Department of Health and the Town of Huntington.
“We’re going to be able to build something [in Melville] that I don’t think we would have been able to build in Nassau,” Kimmelman told Newsday on Monday. “We want to have a state-of-the-art hospital of the future.”
Kimmelman said NYU Langone Hospital — Long Island in Mineola, formerly Winthrop University Hospital, would remain open but have fewer inpatient beds. He said it was too soon to know how many beds would remain.
However, the health system intends to invest there in expanded specialty areas, such as cancer, cardiology and neurology as well as emergency services at the Mineola hospital, which opened in 1896 as Nassau Hospital.
“We will change what is there. … But we’re going to continue to have a significant presence in Mineola,” said Kimmelman, who grew up in East Meadow.
He noted that NYU Langone recently purchased 1200 Franklin Ave. in Garden City, a former Lord & Taylor department store, for a multispecialty ambulatory center. That follows the opening of a 260,000-square-foot outpatient center in the former Sears building nearby in 2024.
The health system also plans to renovate the Perlmutter Cancer Center at 120 Mineola Blvd. in Mineola.
Competition for patients
The Melville hospital, which would sit on 45 acres, would represent more competition for patients, particularly with Northwell Health, the state’s largest private health system.
The Island has 23 hospitals, including 12 in Suffolk County. The proposed site of the new NYU Langone hospital is about 4 miles from Northwell Health’s Plainview Hospital, 7 miles from Northwell’s Syosset Hospital and 8 miles from Northwell’s Huntington Hospital.
Northwell and NYU Langone have clashed over their quest to attract patients, including in a 2024 lawsuit in which NYU Langone alleged Northwell had used NYU’s “distinct purple color” in its ads to confuse patients.
Asked about the need for the first new hospital on Long Island in nearly 50 years, Kimmelman said: “There’s definitely a need. We think that there are a lot of patients who are really interested in the highest-quality product.”
Given the necessary government approvals, he declined to give a potential date for the hospital’s opening.
NYU Langone paid $135.5 million for the Quadrangle buildings in a deal that closed on May 21, health system officials said. The facilities have been run by property manager The We’re Group.
Kimmelman said the location is ideal because it straddles Nassau and Suffolk, “and Melville has been really trying to invest in a town center, and we think this dovetails perfectly.”
NYU Langone plans to demolish 1 Huntington Quadrangle to make way for the new hospital, while 2 Huntington Quadrangle would be used for offices. The exact height of the hospital has yet to be determined, said Vicki Match Suna, the health system’s executive vice president and vice dean of real estate development and facilities.
She said the Melville site offers plenty of room for expansion and is part of the Melville Town Center redevelopment plan for a walkable neighborhood with housing, restaurants and shops.
Choosing Melville
For the medical center to be built, Huntington Town would need to rezone the property, NYU Langone officials said, adding there are no plans to seek tax breaks or other aid from the state or Suffolk County.
Huntington Town Supervisor Ed Smyth told Newsday last month that he supports the project.
“It’s a project of a scale that you can’t overstate the positive economic impact it would have for the region,” he said.
NYU Langone officials estimated the medical center would create thousands of permanent jobs and up to 8,000 construction workers would build the complex.
Suffolk Executive Edward P. Romaine told Newsday last month that the medical center would be “a game changer” for the local economy and healthcare.
NYU Langone had considered other locations before choosing Melville.
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman announced in 2023 that NYU Langone planned to open a teaching hospital on the campus of Nassau Community College in Uniondale.
But the two sides said last year they had paused those talks to allow the health system to explore other options, Newsday reported.
NYU Langone also had discussed purchasing the Canon U.S.A. headquarters in Melville before landing on Huntington Quadrangle.
NYU Langone Health has more than 50,000 employees — including more than 13,000 on Long Island. It consists of seven hospitals, more than 320 outpatient sites and reported operating revenue of $15.4 billion in its most recent fiscal year, which ended Aug. 31.
The health system’s local presence includes more than 120 physician practices, from Valley Stream to Bridgehampton.
The project will provide “an ecosystem of healthcare that goes from the tip of Montauk all the way essentially to Manhattan,” Kimmelman said.
Newsday’s Dorothy Guadagno and Laura Mann contributed research to this article.
