SBH Breaks Ground for New Health and Wellness Center

Dr. David Perlstein, President/CEO (fourth from left), breaks ground for the new Third Avenue development with elected officials, financiers, developers and city and state officials. The $156 million, mixed-use development on the SBH Health System campus will incorporate affordable housing with a range of on-site services aimed at easing health disparities in the Bronx, New York State’s least healthy county.  The project will create 314 affordable homes for low-income residents and incorporate more than 50,000 square feet of health and wellness space that includes a fitness area, an ambulatory care center, a pharmacy, and a teaching kitchen with produce grown on a rooftop farm.  It will also offer comprehensive programs on smoking prevention, fitness, nutrition, stress reduction and life skills. In addition to a focus on preventative health strategies, the project is designed to promote stable, quality housing to help reduce Medicaid costs and avoidable hospitalizations.  The project is scheduled to be completed in 2018.

The St. Barnabas Wellness Care and Affordable housing development is part of Governor Cuomo’s unprecedented commitment to affordable housing and community renewal, which includes $20 billion in the 2016-17 state budget for comprehensive statewide housing and homelessness action plans. Over the next five years, the $10 billion housing initiative will create and preserve 100,000 affordable housing units across the State, and the $10 billion homelessness action plan will create 6,000 new supportive housing beds, 1,000 emergency beds, and a variety of expanded homelessness services.

To see more photos from the groundbreaking event, please visit our Facebook page.