Southside Hospital changes its name to South Shore University Hospital, opens parking garage

Northwell Health on Tuesday said it is renaming Southside Hospital in Bay Shore.

The new name, South Shore University Hospital, better reflects that the facility is a teaching hospital, said Northwell, which operates the hospital.

The new name will be pushed through an advertising and marketing campaign beginning in early 2021, said Barbara Osborn, a Northwell spokeswoman.

Signage will begin to change soon, she added.

Separately, the hospital on Tuesday opened its $56 million, five-story, 1,000-car employee garage, a large part of a major, multi-year expansion at the South Shore hospital.

Officials said the new parking garage was designed to ease congestion in the community and make all ground-level parking spaces available for patients and visitors to the hospital.

The garage, on the corner of Union Boulevard and Aletta Place, is anticipated to open up additional parking to downtown Bay Shore. A traffic light has been installed near the parking garage to help provide safe passage across Union Boulevard.

"Anyone who has visited Southside Hospital in the last few years or driven past the hospital knows that parking was one of the facility’s challenges," Town of Islip Supervisor Angie Carpenter said in a statement. "We are thrilled that Southside created a solution that took local residents’ and the Town of Islip’s input into account and not only benefits the hospital’s visitors and patients but also our beautiful downtown Bay Shore businesses."

Southside Hospital is in the midst of a campus and health care treatment expansion starting with tripling the size of its Bohlsen Family Emergency Department four years ago. Over the past 10 years, Northwell has invested $470 million to improve the hospital’s infrastructure and strengthen its clinical and technological capabilities, including numerous physician recruitments.

Northwell also opened a $1.4 million renovated lobby and front entrance at Southside. It is planning a new pavilion for 90 private rooms, four operating rooms and 48 pre- and postoperative holding rooms as well.

Good Samaritan Hospital Medical Center, which is only a few miles to the west on Montauk Highway, is also upgrading. The hospital, which is operated by Catholic Health Services, said earlier this year it plans a 300,000-square-foot, six-story expansion.

Catholic Health Services said plans include a 16-operating room surgical suite and a 36-bed, private-room inpatient floor. It would also relocate the emergency department.

New Hyde Park-based Northwell Health is the largest health system in the state.