Campus Transformation Project

The Campus Transformation Project

For all its flourishes and fanfare, Dean’s Honor Day 2008 held last fall, was not unlike those of previous years — for the first 47 minutes. Then, after all the academic honors had been conferred, Dean & CEO Robert I. Grossman, M.D., asked Medical Center Trustee Helen Kimmel, this year’s co-recipient of the Valentine Mott Founders Award to join him at the podium. “Mrs. Kimmel,” the dean began, “has just made an extraordinary gift of $150 million toward our new pavilion.” The announcement drew a collective gasp from the standing-room-only crowd in Farkas Auditorium, which burst into applause as a rendering of the new Helen L. and Martin S. Kimmel Pavilion was flashed onto a large screen onstage. “The new Kimmel Pavilion will pioneer seven-day operations,” said Dean Grossman, “partnering with our teams of physicians across the entire continuum of care, with the most advanced technologies. Helen Kimmel is championing our quest to bring clinical care to a new level.”

After accepting the Mott Award, Mrs. Kimmel addressed the audience. “I want to thank you all,” she said. “It was because my husband, Marty, and I became so excited at the way Bob Grossman is leading this Medical Center that we decided to do this. With Bob’s leadership, we’re going to be tops in the country!”

Then the dean shared a second surprise. A gift of $110 million from a family that wishes to remain anonymous, also longtime benefactors of the Medical Center, had been made toward the refurbishment of Tisch Hospital. Again, the screen lit up with a rendering, this time of Tisch Hospital as it will appear after reconstruction.

These two transformative gifts —totaling more than a quarter of a billion dollars — take on even more significance in light of other recent fundraising successes. All told, NYU Langone Medical Center has raised $506 million from some 17,000 donors in 2008 — an amount believed to be the largest ever raised by any academic medical center in a single year. These major gifts came just four months after the announcement of a second $100 million gift from Medical Center Board Chairman Kenneth G. Langone and his wife, Elaine, for whom the Medical Center was renamed.

For Mrs. Kimmel — a Medical Center trustee since 1984 and a life trustee of the University — her gift is the latest of many on behalf of herself and her late husband, Martin, also a Medical Center trustee, who passed away earlier this year. Their past contributions include a gift to establish the Helen L. and Martin S. Kimmel Center for Stem Cell Biology in 2005, followed a year later by a gift to establish the Helen L. and Martin S. Kimmel Center for Biology and Medicine at the Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Medicine. The Kimmels have also endowed two basic science professorships (in molecular immunology and pharmacology), as well as a sponsorship in advanced cardiac therapeutics, recently conferred upon Dr.Stuart Katz. In addition, the Kimmels have supported Medical Center programs in cancer, epilepsy research, rehabilitation, urology, and vascular research.

Immediately following the news of her gift for the Kimmel Pavilion, it was announced that Mrs. Kimmel will be making yet another contribution in the form of a $4 million gift to establish the Helen L. and Martin S. Kimmel Wound Healing Center. At the University’s Washington Square campus, the Kimmels were major contributors to the Helen L. and Martin S. Kimmel Center for University Life.

Construction of the new Kimmel Pavilion, which will increase clinical space significantly, will begin in 2012, with completion scheduled for 2016. Preliminary plans call for a 500,000-square-foot pavilion, adjacent to Tisch Hospital, with all private patient rooms, including space for family members, on the upper floors and multipurpose procedure and surgical rooms on the lower floors. The building will be configured to support the most advanced medical technology. In addition, the pavilion will incorporate a “green” infrastructure to maximize energy efficiency.

The new Kimmel Pavilion will be connected on several floors to Tisch Hospital, NYU’s flagship clinical facility, opened in 1963, which will undergo an extensive makeover. The $110 million gift will go toward the first of five planned phases of renovation. This initial five-year phase will include the creation of a new expansive Family Resource Center on the first floor, featuring
physician consult rooms, a business area with phones, Internet access, a children’s play area, and areas for meditation and relaxation. Other elements involve constructing a new elevator bank on the outside of the courtyard wall to minimize disruption, renovating the lobby, upgrading and expanding third- and fourth-floor clinical and anatomical laboratories, replacing the hospital’s water tank and water heater, and relocating the pharmacy to an expanded space, which will free up additional space for use by the Emergency Department. This initial renovation of Tisch Hospital, together with the construction of the Kimmel Pavilion, will facilitate other longer-range aspects of the Campus Transformation Plan, which includes completely renovating the upper floors of Tisch Hospital.

 “In a time of such economic uncertainty, this mix of grassroots giving and major philanthropy is heartening to observe,” said Robert Berne, Ph.D., Senior Vice President for Health at the University. “It will enable us to undertake the most sweeping revitalization of our institution in its 167-year history.”

“Philanthropy allows organizations to soar,” added Dean Grossman. “Most consider themselves very fortunate, indeed, if they have the opportunity to celebrate — in their organization’s entire lifetime — a single gift as generous as either of these two.”                   

From the January/February 2009 issue of News and Views