New Health Center to Be Built in Queens!

When our union was negotiating the 2012 contract we secured agreement from the Hotel Association to build a new Health Center in Brooklyn. But in addition to that we also secured a strong financial commitment to renovate and expand the Queens Health Center. Since then, things have changed. Yes, the new Brooklyn Health Center was built and, quite frankly, it has been praised by people from all corners of the healthcare industry. But we are not renovating the current Queens Health Center. Instead, we are happy to report, we are going to be building an entire new facility right next door to the current Queens Health Center. When completed, it will be as ambitious in scope, as accommodating in space, as dramatic in design, and as advanced in service and treatment as the new Brooklyn Health Center, and it will even incorporate some new ideas. 

We hope to have the new Queens Health Center up and running before the end of 2021, but perhaps as early as two years from now.

The new Queens Health Center will cost $75 million to build and the construction will take place without interruption in the function of the current Queens Health Center.

You heard that right. You and your families will be able to use the current Queens Health Center until the new facility is ready to serve you. This is being accomplished through the vision of the Board of Trustees—both union and management Trustees—and the able assistance of the CEO of our Benefit Funds, Dr. Robert Greenspan.

The vision I refer to happened more than 10 years ago, when the Trustees agreed to buy the properties adjacent to the current Queens Health Center. The adjacent buildings, which were once a noodle factory and a paint brush factory, will be demolished and that space will be combined with the parking lot to be the home of the new Queens Health Center. When the new facility is complete, the current Health Center will be sold to help defray the $75 million cost of the new facility.

Things are proceeding quickly in this plan to provide members and their families with a spacious, high-tech, state-of-the-art, spanking new Health Center in Queens. An architect has already been selected, and Dr. Greenspan is once again performing his magic in the conceptual stage of the project, designing the most modern and effective health center yet.

The new Queens Health Center will have much more space than the current facility, and its Dental Center will have as many as 35 chairs! In addition, the new Queens Health Center will be modeled after the great success of the Brooklyn Health Center, which has been open for only a year. The new Queens Health Center will have the same pod model that Brooklyn has, meaning that members will go to a pod where the doctors and other health professionals will be coming to them rather than members going from office to office. This model has won rave reviews not only from members and their families that use the Brooklyn Health Center, but also from numerous healthcare professionals who have visited Brooklyn and studied its healthcare delivery system.

You cannot imagine the kind of detailed planning that is already taking place in creating the new Queens Health Center. Besides the design and building of the facility there is equipment to be bought, training to be done, and many other unseen steps to make it work well for you and your families.

And much of this work is already taking place! By the end of 2021, and perhaps as early as two years from now, members and their families who use the Queens Health Center will have the most high-tech and spacious facility for their medical and dental needs!

We are certain that all of you will be glad to see that an entire new Health Center is being built in Queens. Combined with the pension increases that range from 50% to 85% and the late breaking news of special permits legislation passing, we are confident that the following words are as meaningful to you as ever: Happy New Year!