An ambitious $3 billion plan to build a state-of-the-art medical center at Nassau Community College is now officially on hold — and all but dead.
Nassau County and NYU Langone had said they were in talks to build a new “state-of-the-art, integrated academic medical center on Long Island” aimed at expanding access to the region’s “world-class care.”
But “after many months of working diligently to pursue an agreement for a new hospital campus for NYU Langone at Nassau Community College, the parties mutually agree to pause further negotiations as a result of external factors that have presented issues that may prove to be too burdensome to overcome,” Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman’s office announced in a statement Friday.
Neither the county exec’s office nor NYU Langone would explain exactly what caused the plan for the Long Island site to go off the rails. Nassau County Community College did not respond to a request for comment.
Hospital spokesman Steve Ritea only said, “Despite our best efforts to work through a number of technical issues, we are unable to proceed with this specific location.”
Blakeman first announced the plan at NCC’s 2023 graduation ceremony, saying the new hospital would be built across 40 acres on the college’s campus and create thousands of jobs.
NYU Langone, which has a 591-bed hospital in Mineola, LI, had said that medical center was in need of an expansion but wouldn’t be able to do so in its current location.
NYU Langone then began talks with the county for the new proposed hospital on the NCC campus, with the vision that its Mineola hospital would evolve into an outpatient facility.
Ken Langone, chairman of the NYU Langone board, told Newsday, “It was just too complicated” to build a major hospital on the campus.
“We considered all the things that had to be done, and they’re certainly manageable, but there’s a lot of moving parts,” he said.
NYU Langone is now reportedly shifting to other opportunities — focusing on securing a deal for “a major hospital” in Suffolk County with a proposed 20-story building around the Canon U.S.A. Inc. headquarters in Melville.
A few weeks ago, NYU Langone also completed a merger with Long Island Community Hospital, officially taking over the Patchogue medical center.