Perkins Eastman Is Designing a New Memorial Sloan-Kettering Surgery Center

NEW YORK — The Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center is looking for state approval from the New York Public Health and Health Planning Council for a $339 million project.

The Memorial Sloan-Kettering Josie Robertson Surgery Center will be a new 16-story, 179,000-square-foot building constructed on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Designed by the architectural firm Perkins Eastman, it will feature 12 operating rooms equipped to provide technologically advanced surgical care on an outpatient basis. The facility is scheduled for completion in 2015.

The center will include an ambulatory surgery extension with 12 operating rooms, a pre-surgical assessment are with 18 observation beds, and a 28-bed unit for post-anesthesia care and extended-stay recovery.

The observation beds are for stays up to 23 hours and will not alter the number of beds the center is licensed to provide. The surgery center is intended to free up capacity at the main hospital. Sloan-Kettering estimates that the new center will handle 6,393 patient visits within the first year and will accommodate 8,304 visits by the third year.

A $50 million commitment in funding has come from the Robertson Foundation, with the rest coming from other philanthropic sources, as well as some institutional funds.

“We are deeply grateful to The Robertson Foundation and the entire Robertson family. By supporting initiatives that focus on high-quality cancer treatment as well as today’s most creative research, the foundation has provided the means to honor Josie Robertson in a way that goes to the heart of this institution’s mission,” said Craig B. Thompson, President of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in a statement.

In addition, the Robertson Foundation is also creating the Josie Robertson Investigator Program, which will support the recruitment of young physicians and scientists. People who early in their careers, have attained significant insights into cancer and devised groundbreaking approaches to prevention and treatment will be targeted for the program.

Josie Robertson was elected to Memorial Sloan-Kettering’s Board of Overseers in 2004. Prior to her death in 2010, she worked with her husband, investor Julian H. Robertson, to support a range of causes in education, medical research, and other areas.