Cornell University’s Weill Cornell Medical College announced two deals that are a part of its plan to expand to downtown Manhattan.
The school, which is affiliated with New York Presbyterian, has recently added 19,000 square feet to its lease at 156 William St. expanding to 81,200 square feet in total area.
Starting in 2017, the school will use the space to house internal medicine and specialty practices, which is run by the members of Weill Cornell Physician Organization.
The expansion will allow Weill Cornell to start offering medical imaging such as, CT scans, chest x-rays, and MRIs at the new office beginning in 2018. While the school has five imaging locations in upper Manhattan, the new location will be its first such location in the downtown area.
A spokesman told Craine’s New York that adding imaging service to downtown residents provides "a new and highly needed medical service for this growing residential community as well as the workplace community of many government and business employees."
Meanwhile, Weill Cornell’s competitor Mount Sinai Beth Israel announced in May that it would downsize. Mount Sinai, which had long served residents in downtown Manhattan, announced plans to shrink from 825 to 70 inpatient beds, with an additional 153 psychiatric beds. According to Dr. Kenneth Davis, Mount Sinai chief executive, the hospital is investing $550 million in its outpatient practices and planning to gradually move Beth Israel to a new location.
In 2013, Weill Cornell entered the lower Manhattan market with the acquisition of Downtown Hospital, now known as NYP/Lower Manhattan Hospital.
The expansion is part its wider strategy of extending its reach to lower Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens, said Dr. Augustine Choi, Weill Cornell's interim dean.
"With Beth Israel announcing they will significantly reduce their size, for residents of lower Manhattan and residents of Brooklyn who get care in lower Manhattan there is really an unmet medical need," he said.
In a separate development, Weill Cornell announced that it has finalized a deal to open its Ronald O. Perelman and Claudia Cohen Center for Reproductive Medicine at 255 Greenwich Street in the Tribeca area of lower Manhattan.
The center will occupy 10,547 square feet area on part of the building’s fifth floor and should start operations in January 2017, according to landlord Jack Resnick & Sons.
