The commercial and residential real estate construction boom in New York City in the last several years is being mirrored by a record-setting expansion in the city’s health care sector, with billions of dollars pouring into the construction of new hospital and research facilities around the region.

NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, one of the world’s most comprehensive health facilities, is composed of two renowned medical centers, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital-Columbia University Medical Center and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center on the Upper East Side.

In November, Columbia Presbyterian held a topping out ceremony for the $242 million, state-of-the-art Vivian and Seymour Milstein Family Heart Center. The 142,000-square-foot building is situated at 165th Street and Riverside Drive on a former vacant parcel just south of the present Milstein Hospital building. The new building will connect to the second floor of the original building, which houses the present invasive cardiology suite. The heart hospital will include 20 new intensive care unit beds, eight new operating rooms, a 200-seat auditorium, and other facilities. Expected to open its doors in 2010, it was made possible through a $50 million gift from the Vivian and Seymour Milstein family.

Last year the Federal Housing Administration issued a commitment to ensure a $278 million supplemental loan for NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital to finance a $489 million expansion of its Emergency Department and the construction of a cardiovascular treatment center, an Advanced Therapeutic Services Center, and a cogeneration plant.

Last January, the official opening was held for the Weill Greenberg Center, a new 13-story ambulatory care and medical education building at 70th Street and York Avenue. The 330,000-square-foot building houses clinical care and research facilities and contains the Clinical Skills Center.

Later this year, the New York Weill Cornell Medical Center will complete the construction of its new six-story building, which will house operating rooms, a relocated blood bank, and new interventional neuroradiology labs, making the hospital one of the primary referral centers for stroke patients.

This summer, the first residents are expected to move into the new 19-story mixed-use tower on First Avenue between 71st and 72nd streets that will house employees and medical offices of New York Weill Cornell Medical Center.

Last June, Weill Cornell Medical College announced gifts totaling $400 million, of which $250 million was provided from Joan and Sanford I. Weill to be utilized to build the $650 million, 350,000-square-foot Biomedical Research Building on 69th Street and York Avenue. This building is the first new research facility to be built on the Weill Cornell campus in two decades.

Construction has commenced on the former site of the Carriage House parking garage on East 61st Street, between First and York avenues. The Weill Cornell Medical Center is adding two floors to the building and renovating the site into a research and laboratory facility.

Less than a block from the campus of Weill Cornell Medical Center is the Hospital for Special Surgery. The hospital is an affiliate of the NewYork-Presbyterian Healthcare System and an affiliate of Weill Cornell Medical Center.

NewYork-Presbyterian is far from the only hospital expanding. In December 2006, the Hospital for Special Surgery completed the construction of an additional 85,000 square feet of new space and 100,000 square feet of re-engineered and re-designed space in its existing facility, for a total expenditure of $64 million. The hospital is built over FDR Drive at the far east end of 71st Street. The hospital plans an additional expansion that has been presented to the local Community Board: a proposal to construct about 100,000 square feet of new space in two locations, adding space to the ninth through 11th floors, and for a new 12-story River Building to be constructed on a platform within the air space over FDR Drive.

Last October, the official groundbreaking ceremony was held for the $700 million Alexandria Center for Science and Technology at the East River Science Park, a 3.7-acre, 1.1 million-square-foot center for commercial bioscience near Bellevue Hospital and NYU Medical Center.

The East River Science Park is being built on a parcel of city-owned land on the Bellevue Hospital campus between 28th and 29th streets and First Avenue and the FDR Drive. The center will be built in two phases, the first of which will include two towers of office and laboratory space. It is expected to be complete in 2009. Later this month, the Michael F. Price Center for Genetic and Translational Medicine in the Harold and Muriel Block Research Pavilion at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University is scheduled to open. The $200 million five-story, 201,000-square-foot research facility is located near the corner of Morris Park Avenue and Eastchester Road in the Bronx. The center will house 40 state-of-the-art research laboratories, 10 specialized scientific facilities, and a 100-seat auditorium.

St. Vincent’s Hospital, situated in the Greenwich Village Historic District, plans to submit to the Landmarks Preservation Commission for the construction of a 21-story, $800 million hospital on the west side of Seventh Avenue between 12th and 13th streets. The 480,000-square-foot “green” hospital would house 360 rooms, emergency rooms, operating rooms, and intensive care units. Last month, a joint venture of Tessler Development and the Chetrit Group closed on the purchase of the property owned by St. Vincent’s Midtown Hospital situated between West 51st and 52nd streets and Ninth and Tenth avenues. The purchasers paid about $84.7 million for the site, and financing was provided by Lehman Brothers. According to real estate sources, the new owners plan to renovate the property into an apartment complex.

As reported in The New York Sun last November, within the space of 18 months several hospitals have opened renovated emergency room departments. In September 2006, the Lehman Brothers Emergency Center opened at the New York Downtown Hospital. In February, Lenox Hill Hospital unveiled the $20 million Anne & Isidore Falk Center for Emergency Care. In August, Montefiore Medical Center completed construction of its expanded emergency department on the hospital’s Weiler campus in the Bronx. In December, construction commenced on the West Side for a new emergency department at Roosevelt Hospital.

A new $145 million biomedical laboratory for research on cancer and other diseases is being built at Landmark at East View, an office park located in Greenburgh and Mount Pleasant in Westchester County. BioMed Realty Trust is constructing three buildings on a site that was once the home of the Union Carbide Corporation. Regeneron, a biopharmaceutical company, is expected to occupy about 200,000 square feet of the new building, with occupancy in 2009.

This summer, North Shore-LIJ Medical Center celebrated the completion of the first phase of the $34 million renovation and expansion project that will double the size of the hospital Emergency Department. The Phyllis and William Mack Emergency Center includes 18,500 square feet of new space.

A major expansion is planned for the new inpatient tower at the Schneider Children’s Hospital of the North Shore-LIJ Health System. The four-story, 100,000-square-foot facility will house the New York region’s first standalone Pediatric Emergency Department, a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, an imaging center, and 75 medical surgical beds. Construction began in the fall on the $110 million project.

Later this year, Stony Brook University Medical Center anticipates the completion of the first phase of its major modernization project that includes 154,000 square feet of new construction and 48,000 square feet of renovation of its complex on the campus of Stony Brook University in Long Island.

In Flushing, the New York Hospital Queens plans to create a new wing on its existing property, adding 80 acute care beds, a wing for cardiac diagnostic with advanced technology, interventional laboratories, and doubling the ambulatory services operating rooms. Last February, the hospital broke ground on the new $50 million expansion project.

Through the efforts of philanthropy, city and state funding, and tax-exempt financing, major expansion is under way on the New York health care system, moving to meet the requirements for health care and research in the 21st century.

Mr. Stoler, a contributing editor to The New York Sun, is a television and radio broadcaster and a senior principal at real estate investment fund. He can be reached at mstoler@newyorkrealestatetv.com.