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Children's move to medical campus on horizon 

Tracey Drury

Buffalo Business First Reporter -Business First

Kaleida Health    is moving forward with its plans to build a new facility for Women & Children’s Hospital on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus    .

Acting on a request from its physician community to expedite the process, the organization issued a request for proposals (RFP) in early September to identify a financial and/or development partner. The physicians would like to see a new inpatient facility built in the next few years.

Responses are due back in about 30 days, says Michael Hughes, vice president for marketing, public relations and government affairs.

“The physicians have asked the hospital administration to be more aggressive in their timetable, which forces us to be more creative when it comes to financing,” he said. “The basis for this RFP is to see if there’s a development and/or financial party that wants to come to the forefront to begin the conversation about the relocation of the hospital, and be creative in how you finance that.”

Hughes says Kaleida anticipates a good response for the RFP based on the size and scope of the potential project.

The Women & Children’s Hospital of Buffalo Foundation is planning a feasibility study to determine potential philanthropic interest for a new hospital.

Kaleida is looking at how to move the hospital from its existing home on Bryant Street, in the middle of a residential neighborhood.

Already underway is a plan to build an outpatient pediatric ambulatory surgery center in a shared facility on Main Street at the edge of the medical campus. Construction is slated to begin later this year. Four homes on Hodge Street previously purchased by Kaleida for an ambulatory surgery center adjacent to the existing hospital are being turned over to a private developer for residential development.

Kaleida officials have also had a series of meeting with representatives from theUniversity at Buffalo    , as well asRoswell Park Cancer Institute    and other stakeholders on the medical campus about the possibility of partnering through shared facilities. The UB School of Medicine & Biomedical Sciences is also beginning the planning process to move the medical school from UB’s South Campus to the downtown core.

Hughes says possibilities could include co-locating in the same building, sharing labs or building side-by-side.

“We’re continuing to try to figure out how to put the project together,” he said.