Downtown Campus Construction Update

Published February 28, 2011 This content is archived.

Work on UB's and Kaleida Health's $291 million construction project reached its halfway mark last week on schedule.

“It’s exciting to see the building progress so quickly, and now we’ve reached that point where the real work begins on delivering the best vascular care anywhere.”
L. Nelson Hopkins, MD
Chair of the UB Department of Neurosurgery and Chief of Service for Neurosurgery at Kaleida Health

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The joint project—which combines Kaleida’s Global Vascular Institute and UB’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute and Biosciences Incubator in one building—has been under construction since September 2009.

The new building will include:

  • Five floors dedicated to Kaleida Health’s $173 million merger of its cardiac, stroke and vascular programs, as well as a new and expanded emergency department
  • Five floors dedicated to UB’s research and development facilities, including its $118 million Clinical and Translational Science Institute and a Biosciences Incubator

The highlights of the project, to date, include:

  • Creation of a new transitional physician board that will oversee the Global Vascular Institute
  • Naming of a new nurse management team (first phase)
  • Integration of the Jacobs Institute into the UB space. The institute will support research and clinical collaboration on the causes, treatment and prevention of heart and vascular diseases.

“It’s exciting to see the building progress so quickly, and now we’ve reached that point where the real work begins on delivering the best vascular care anywhere,” said L. Nelson Hopkins, MD, chair of the Department of Neurosurgery and chief of service for neurosurgery at Kaleida Health, who serves as chair of the physician advisory board.

In November 2011, the new emergency department will be the first portion of the building to open. It is expected to accommodate more than 60,000 visits a year, making it the largest such department in Western New York.

A branding study is currently being conducted to name the new building and the new medical campus.

Construction milestones include:

  • The construction crane being removed from the site
  • The full enclosure of the building
  • Substantial completion of the new electrical substation and the chiller building addition

When complete, the facility (including Buffalo General Hospital's main bed tower) will house nearly 600 patient beds, 30 operating rooms, 17 interventional labs for cardiac, vascular and neurosurgical procedures, as well as four CT scanners and four MRIs.