Expansion already on the horizon

By John Tredrea
Even though it hasn’t officially opened its doors, the University Medical Center of Princeton at Plainsboro already is poised to expand.

 
UMCPP already has all the government approvals needed to add two floors to the structure that will open May 22. Also in hand are approvals to expand a diagnotic and treatment building and to erect another medical office building on the hospital grounds on Route 1.
 
CEO Barry Rabner said the hospital was designed to make expansion as quick and efficiently as possible. There are no definite plans in place yet to expand, he added.
 
 “The total cost of the hospital is $522 million,” he said. “Because of that cost, we’re being very cautious not to create excess capacity. You have to try to predict future demand for the hospital as accurately as possible, and that’s what we’ll do going forward.”
 
The patient towers at the hospital have been designed to accommodate two more floors.
 
“There’s equipment on the roof of the hospital now,” Mr. Rabner said. “If we do expand, that equipment would stay where it is on what would become an interstitial floor of the building. That way, the two floors could be added with minimal disruption and could be done as quickly as possible.” 
 
He estimated it would take about 18 months to add the two new floors to the patient towers should the hospital decide to go that route.
 
 “Another area of possible expansion is our diagnostic and treatment area,” he said. “A new building has already been designed and we have approval to build it right next to an existing diagnostic and treatment center.”
 
 All systems in the existing diagnostic and treatment building run toward where the new building would be placed. 
 
“So, after we got the new building up adjacent to the existing one, we’d tear down a wall on the existing building and connect the systems of the two structures into one another,” Mr. Rabner said. “This would reduce the time it takes to do the job and minimize disruption. As for a new medical office building, we do have an approval in place to build one. But I’m not sure there will ever be a need for it. If we ever need another patient tower, we know where it will go.”
 
If the hospital is expanded, a parking garage will be built, Mr. Rabner said. “It’s all surface parking now,” he said.