Firm Handles Mount Sinai Application
June 2, 2015Bercow Radell & Fernandez Helps Mount Sinai Get Design Approval for New Hospital Tower
Officials from the Mount Sinai Medical Center of Florida got design review approval from Miami Beach on Tuesday for a new eight-story hospital tower and emergency care facility to be built on the medical campus facing Biscayne Bay.
While the Design Review Board gave a strong endorsement to the new tower designed by CannonDesign of St. Louis, it held off on plans to approve an extensive landscaping plan for the project, saying the current plan submitted needed more work and should be re-submitted at next month’s board meeting.
The board expressed concerns over the location of vegetation, trees and the size of parking spaces submitted in the plan. Among the landscaping issues to be finalized is the construction of a public Baywalk that will run along the Biscayne Bay waterfront in front of the new hospital tower.
The board strongly endorsed plans for the new tower, which contains a narrow trapezoid footprint with a one-story attached emergency department that will more than double the current ER facilities.
The new tower will be located at the center of the medical campus facing Biscayne Bay and will contain the new surgery facility, emergency care areas and patient rooms. George Nikolajevich, design principal at CannonDesign said the tower’s shape was designed so that as many rooms as possible would have bay views — something Mount Sinai officials say will benefit their patients. The new facility will have 350,000-square feet, with patient facilities of 155 rooms per floor.
Mount Sinai’s emergency department was built in 1972 and much of its campus dates back even before then. It is now the only hospital on Miami Beach and its emergency room receives twice as many visitors as it did when it opened, officials said. A $173 million bond issue will fund much of the expansion, with about another $100 million coming from charitable contributions.
–James Teeple
