NYU Langone opens $170M hub in former Sears store in Garden City

NYU Langone is pitching its new ambulatory center — spanning an entire block in Garden City — as a way to streamline health care and cut out administrative “homework” for patients.

The Manhattan-based health system spent $170 million converting a stand-alone Sears at 1111 Franklin Ave. into a 260,000-square-foot medical hub. 

NYU Langone has gradually moved in various practices and held a formal opening ceremony for the center on Tuesday. Leaders said concentrating dozens of services and specialties in one location would accelerate referrals and ease communication among a patient's various clinicians. About 900 people work at the facility, which houses 32 clinical specialties, including adult and pediatric ophthalmology, cardiology and dermatology, according to Dr. Andrew Brotman, executive vice president and vice dean for clinical affairs and strategy.

“If you need a consult, you can go down the hall, up the stairs in a way that's much more personal,” Brotman said.

NYU Langone anticipates getting state approval this summer to administer anesthesia at the site, which will allow staff in operating rooms to perform minor surgeries like vasectomies or cystoscopes, where a small camera is used to examine the inside of bladders, said Jean-Marie Addeo, senior director of ambulatory care operations at the Garden City site. That shift would free up more of the facility's 260 patient exam rooms, she said.

Staff have been trained to help patients schedule needed follow-up services and identify same-day or next-day openings, Addeo said. 

“Patients can actually leave with their scanning and their imaging orders scheduled,” she said. “So there's no homework left.” 

The setup helped Nancy Langdon, 61, address a nearly 6-pound mass in her abdomen, which was discovered at her first appointment with a cardiologist. Within two hours, she had blood drawn, an ultrasound of her abdomen and an echocardiogram of the heart.

Clinicians discovered an ovarian dermoid cyst, with a benign tumor and a malignant tumor. They performed a CT scan and prepared her for surgery to remove the tumors as well as her uterus and appendix at NYU Langone Hospital—Long Island, where Langdon works as director of the chronic disease program. 

“Everything happened within 11 days, that's how expedited it was,” Langdon said. “And 90% of it was that building. Everything is there.”

So far, the Garden City facility has had an average of 1,800 visits a week and expects to see about 400,000 patients annually, Addeo said. NYU Langone signed a 30-year lease with Steele Equities, which owns the building, designed by architect Edward Durrell Stone for Bloomingdale's. That store occupied the site from 1972 to 1995.

NYU Langone and other health systems have been repurposing shuttered retail stores across the Island. The expansion was heralded Tuesday by Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, who said he is marketing the county as a medical tourism destination domestically and plans to soon reach out to an international audience. 

“We expect people who have some kind of exotic procedure, if they were thinking of going someplace else, that they think of Nassau County first,” Blakeman told Newsday. 

He has promoted NYU Langone's vision for a $3 billion medical center on the grounds of Nassau Community College, and said he hopes to have a formal proposal on the idea for the county legislature to review in 90 days.

By Sarina Trangle

sarina.trangle@newsday.comSarinaTrangle

Sarina Trangle covers affordability and cost of living issues and other business topics. She previously worked as an editor and reporter at amNewYork.