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Golisano Children's Hospital Set To Open New Facility; Second Phase To Begin Soon

urmc.rochester.edu

Officials at Golisano Children's Hospital are ready to move on with the next phase of that expansion.

You may have noticed the billboard as you're driving on 490 into Rochester, or the recent full page ad in the Democrat & Chronicle.  The ads highlight the upcoming opening of that new eight-story building as well as the second phase for that facility.

Dr. Nina Schor is pediatrician-in-chief for the hospital. She says the official opening of the new Golisano Children's Hospital  is July 15th, although some infants from the neo-natal intensive care unit will start to be moved over to the new facility this Tuesday.

The second phase of the project includes building out the new state-of-the art pediatric operating rooms. Schor says that will make the process for treating those children a lot more efficient.

"There's a lot of moving of equipment in and out depending on the age of the patient who's being operated on; that won't need to happen in the new space because there will be dedicated space for children undergoing surgery.”

The second phase of the project, which costs about $45 million, is expected to begin this fall and take about a year and a half to complete. Some of the money will be raised through donations. 

The initial project costs $145 million, and was jump-started with a $20 million donation from Paychex founder Tom Golisano.

Schor says there are a couple of reasons for the recent publicity campaign, and one reason is to highlight the fact that people in the Rochester area realize how important a role they played in the development of the new hospital.

"We could not have done this without the people around us, this is truly the children's hospital that the community built. And the second is to let them know that just because we opened the front doors doesn't mean that everything inside is ready to go , that we still need help going just a little bit further to complete this project."

The second phase of construction at Golisano Children’s Hospital is expected to be completed in the summer of 2017.

Randy Gorbman is WXXI's director of news and public affairs. Randy manages the day-to-day operations of WXXI News on radio, television, and online.