$330M Hospital Plan Progresses

MIDDLETOWN, NY-Despite some regulatory hurdles that lie ahead, officials with Orange Regional Medical Center are holding to a year-end 2007 start on a new $330-million hospital here. The facility will be the first construction project of a major hospital facility in New York State in more than 25 years, hospital officials maintain.

At a press briefing held at the center’s Horton Hospital campus in Middletown recently, Wayne Becker, vice president of special projects for Orange Regional, discussed the project’s status and showcased the latest architectural design elements of the 374-bed facility that will total 621,000 sf. Becker said the new seven-story Orange Regional Medical Center, to be built on a 61-acre site off East Main Street in Middletown, will have hard and soft construction costs that will account for $255 million of the overall project price tag.

Orange Regional currently operates two hospitals within eight miles of each other–the Arden Hill campus, which is a licensed 174-bed facility in Goshen, and the 276-bed Horton campus. The hospital will eventually consolidate hospital operations into the new facility and is in the midst of trying to sell its existing Arden Hill and Horton campuses to help defray development costs. The Horton campus is the largest hospital in Orange County, while Arden Hill is ranked third. Orange Regional also operates 12 outpatient facilities and recently opened a new 80,000-sf addition to its Orange Regional Medical Pavilion on Crystal Run Road in Middletown.