CLIFTON — The city broke ground on a $25 million ambulatory care center that will take over a Vanderbilt Avenue clinic that has been shuttered for nearly a decade.
NYC Health + Hospitals is building an 18,000 square-foot Gotham Health center at 165 Vanderbilt Ave. Wednesday that will offer primary, ambulatory and urgent care services when it opens next year.
"Providing more ambulatory care to meet the needs of community residents is critically important for the future of health care in New York," said Dr. Ram Raju, president of HHC, in a statement.
"The expanded access is expected to mean tens of thousands more patient visits each year, which in turn will reduce the need for costly emergency and inpatient care."
The center plans to offer primary medical and mental health services for children and adults and switch to an urgent care center after regular hours, according to HHC.
The site will have services for women's health, behavioral health, radiology, asthma and diabetes care.
The two-story modular building will take over the Adult Day Health Care Center that was run by Saint Vincent Medical Center. The site closed down in 2007 after it was bought by HHC from the bankrupt Saint Vincent, according to planning documents.
HHC previously planned to redevelop the spot into a $23 million extension of Coney Island Hospital that was backed by a $7 million allocation from Councilwoman Debi Rose, but those plans were eventually scrapped.
The project is funded with $20 million from New York City’s Primary Care Expansion Initiative and another $8 million from the City Council secured by Rose. It is expected to open in the fall of 2017.
"Any look at citywide health statistics will show that we need more primary care services here on Staten Island, especially on the North Shore," Rose said in a statement.
"When opened, this facility will meet the health care needs of local residents in a convenient, state-of-the-art setting, while alleviating the burden on our local emergency rooms."