SYRACUSE — Syracuse Community Health (SCH) anticipates it’ll be able to see patients in its new building at 930 S. Salina St. in October. The vast majority of the work on the outside is complete, says Keith Cuttler, COO of SCH, who spoke with CNYBJ on Aug. 23. As for the interior, the work is […]
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SYRACUSE — Syracuse Community Health (SCH) anticipates it’ll be able to see patients in its new building at 930 S. Salina St. in October.
The vast majority of the work on the outside is complete, says Keith Cuttler, COO of SCH, who spoke with CNYBJ on Aug. 23.
As for the interior, the work is at “the 11th hour,” he adds.
The interior work still includes painting on the second floor, and the organization has already started moving some furniture in.
Syracuse Community Health is the rebranded name of the Syracuse Community Health Center, located at 819 S. Salina St. in Syracuse.
As of the Aug. 23 interview, SCH hadn’t received the certificate of occupancy from the City of Syracuse, according to Cuttler.
SCH has also been submitting required paperwork to the New York State Department of Health, so it can conduct final site inspection and approve the organization as an Article 28 license diagnostic-treatment center.
“Due to some delays, particularly with manufacturing, it’s not going to happen when we wanted it to,” Cuttler tells CNYBJ. “We had really hoped that we would be seeing patients on Monday, Sept. 18. We’re talking now about October.”
The project cost will come in at about $23 million, he notes. Future plans for the existing building nearby at 819 S. Salina St. are still to be determined.
Hueber-Breuer Construction Co. Inc. of Syracuse is the general contractor on the project, and King + King Architects, also of Syracuse, designed the facility. Cuttler says the construction effort “has gone very well,” especially coming off the pandemic.
In speaking at the August 2022 groundbreaking event, Mark Hall, president and CEO of Syracuse Community Health, said the new building will be a 56,000-square-foot structure, which he described as a “downsize” compared to the 78,000 square feet available at the current location.
SCH in August 2022 said its new brand identity, logo design, and website reflect “our deep roots in the community and our long-term commitment to serve them. The new tagline, ‘healthy happens here,’ offers a promise that people can get the patient care they need from Syracuse Community Health.”
The new facility also joins the organization’s already established SCH offices at 1938 E. Fayette St. and 603 Oswego St. in Syracuse.
Syracuse Community Health is a federally qualified health center (FQHC) serving the Syracuse area and Onondaga County. Founded in 1978, SCH serves about 30,000 patients each year. As an FQHC, the nonprofit SCH is a community-based health center providing primary care and dental and mental-health services to area residents, “especially to those who might have limited access to health care,” per an SCH news release.
Plan for existing space
As Cuttler explains it, SCH had plans for the existing building at 819 S. Salina St., but they were all predicated on the receipt of a New York State Capital Transformation grant in round three. It’s a grant intended for health-care organizations with capital projects.
SCH had combined the grants it was awarded from the first and second Transformation grant rollouts to pay for the new building, Cuttler notes.
“We had submitted an application under round three of the Transformation grants and did not receive an award,” he says. “We had about $20 million in that grant application for renovating the current building.”
He went on to say that SCH will apply again in the fourth round of the Transformation grant process. Until then, SCH is working with a consultant to identify the “best” use of the space that will be available.
He figures SCH will have about 40,000 square feet of space available in the existing building after those moving to the new building begin operations there.
“It’s quite a bit, but we want to know what’s going to best serve the community around us,” he says.
Moving forward
When SCH begins operations in the new facility, Cuttler says mostly administrative- support staff will remain at the existing building. That includes information-technology staff, the entire finance department, medical records, and human resources.
“The design and the intent of building a new building was to make … as much clinical space for the patients as possible …and not fill the brand new space with a lot administrative-support services. That [new] building is for the patients,” says Cuttler.
Services in the new structure will include the optometry office, podiatry, OBGYN, pediatrics, family medicine, dental services, and optician and pharmacy vendors as well.
Cuttler says SCH provides services for those who are underinsured, uninsured, and are of a lower socioeconomic status.
“We feel very strongly that it doesn’t matter how much money you make or where you live, you deserve the very best [in health care], so that’s what we did with this building. It’s not just a new building. Everything in it is top of the line,” says Cuttler.