City officials have broken ground on the new New York City Public Health Laboratory, which will be located adjacent to the Harlem Hospital complex on 137th Street. New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) is managing the construction on what will be a cutting-edge facility operated by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) and tasked with protecting and promoting the health of all New Yorkers and keeping the city at the forefront of disease response and investigation.
“We can’t afford to wait for the next pandemic to strengthen our public health infrastructure,” said Mayor Eric Adams. “The NYC Public Health Laboratory will bring a state-of-the-art facility to Harlem to serve and protect the public health of all New Yorkers.”
The 10-story, 240,000-square-foot building, designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, was designed with staff wellness in mind, and will comply with New York City’s new, ambitious resiliency and sustainability regulations. The $454-million building will be designed to meet LEED version 4 Silver and be a resilient structure with all critical building systems located above the current 100-year flood plain.
DOHMH and NYCEDC secured $25 million from the Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS) to make the new lab one of the most energy efficient, sustainable and high-tech laboratories in the country. Some of the energy conservation measures in the new Public Health Laboratory will be ultra-efficient laboratory equipment, solar photovoltaic panels and chilled beams. It will also have a cogeneration plant to provide significant energy and cost savings.
The new Public Health Laboratory participated in the City’s 80×50 program, which is committed to achieving an 80% carbon emissions reduction by 2050.
The NYC Public Health Laboratory was the world’s first municipal bacteriological laboratory. In the century since its first campaign to control diphtheria in NYC, the Public Health Lab has expanded to provide a variety of clinical and environmental laboratory testing services to detect and characterize disease causing organisms. Since the 1960s, the Public Health Lab has occupied 11 floors of a 335,000 square-foot, 14- story building, across the street from Bellevue Hospital at 455 First Avenue.
Construction of the new building began in June of 2022 following the demolition of three existing buildings and is expected to be ready for occupancy in 2026.
