According to the release, the new hospital at 12th Street and Seventh Avenue will be “a technologically advanced, green institution that will provide top-notch healthcare to New York residents and businesses from Midtown Manhattan to the Battery.”

Founded by I.M. Pei in 1955, Pei Cobb Freed & Partners has been involved in some monumental design projects over the years including the East Building of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the expansion of the Louvre in Paris.

The full release is after the jump.

SAINT VINCENT CATHOLIC MEDICAL CENTERS SELECTS WORLD-RENOWNED ARCHITECTS PEI COBB FREED TO DESIGN NEW STATE-OF-THE-ART MEDICAL FACILITY

-- New, Green Hospital Will Serve Rapidly Growing West Side Population--

NEW YORK, NY (August 2, 2007) – Saint Vincent Catholic Medical Centers (Saint Vincent’s) today announced that it has retained the internationally respected architectural firm of Pei Cobb Freed & Partners to design Saint Vincent’s new Greenwich Village hospital—a technologically advanced, green institution that will provide top-notch healthcare to New York residents and businesses from Midtown Manhattan to the Battery. Pei Cobb Freed & Partners will team up with Ballinger as the healthcare architect that will lead the programming, planning and design of the hospital’s interior.

“Pei Cobb Freed & Partner’s outstanding record of designing memorable architecture -- while staying true to its concern for the quality of public space -- makes the firm the ideal choice to build a state-of-the-art 21^st century hospital that is responsive to the Greenwich Village landscape,” said Alfred E. Smith, IV, Chairman of the Board, Saint Vincent Catholic Medical Centers. “From its expansion of the Louvre Museum in Paris, its building of the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, to its work on several hospitals right here in New York City, Pei Cobb Freed has time and again proven its commitment to excellence. We’re thrilled to have them on board for this seminal project.”

Pei Cobb Freed – A Record of Leading Design Around the World

In its more than 50-year history, Pei Cobb Freed & Partners has designed some of the most recognizable structures throughout North America and the globe, always staying true to its principal that projects reflect a concern for the specific physical and cultural contexts in which they occur.

“Greenwich Village is one of the most historically rich neighborhoods in the world, and our process will begin and end with that vital consideration in mind,” said Ian Bader, a partner at Pei Cobb Freed & Partners. “We look forward to working not only with St. Vincent’s physicians and staff, but with residents from the West Side of Manhattan to ensure we build a hospital that lives up to the storied traditions of both St. Vincent’s and Greenwich Village.”

Ballinger, which is headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, will be responsible to create functional, state-of-the-art facilities that provide both a healing environment for patients and their families and a supportive, efficient workplace for clinicians and staff.

Ballinger is nationally renowned for its excellence in healthcare design, and is strongly engaged in many of the most progressively complex projects in the country for hospitals, academic medical centers and regional health systems.

At the same time, the hospital has engaged Kurt Salmon Associates, a strategic hospital-planning firm, to conduct a thorough bed-need and service analysis to inform St. Vincent’s on the number of beds and services recommended for the new hospital.

Working with the Community – A Blueprint for Success

Representatives from Pei Cobb Freed & Partners and Ballinger were introduced last night to a Community Working Group that St. Vincent’s assembled earlier this year to ensure that the community's needs are addressed throughout the life of the project.

This group is composed of elected officials, representatives of Community Board 2 and local block associations, community leaders, patient advocates, and St. Vincent's physician representatives.

“As St. Vincent's continues to transition towards becoming a truly world-class medical facility, it is imperative that the community have input every step of the way. In Pei Cobb Freed, St. Vincent's has found an architectural partner who understands this project is as much about how the community will relate to the new building, as how the building will help Manhattan's medical needs,” said Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer, also a member of the St. Vincent’s Community Working Group.

Saint Vincent’s

Saint Vincent Catholic Medical Centers (Saint Vincent’s) is anchored by St. Vincent’s Hospital Manhattan, an academic medical center located in Greenwich Village and the only hospital serving the West Side from Midtown to the Battery, St. Vincent’s Westchester, a behavioral health hospital in Westchester County, and continuing care services that include two skilled nursing facilities in Brooklyn, another on Staten Island, a hospice, and a home health agency serving the Metropolitan New York area. Its behavioral health services also provide supportive housing programs for people with mental illness throughout the Metropolitan area. Saint Vincent’s is the designated provider for the New York and New Jersey region of the US Family Health Plan sponsored by the US Department of Defense.

Saint Vincent’s serves as the academic medical center of New York Medical College in New York City. The healthcare organization is sponsored by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Brooklyn and the president of the Sisters of Charity of New York.

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