Smilow Cancer Hospital celebrates construction milestone with topping off ceremony
Final ceremonial beams hoisted into place
For Immediate Release
Date: 07/29/08
Contact: Mark D'Antonio, (203) 688-2488
New Haven, Conn. - The final ceremonial steel girders were hoisted into place on July 24 on the 14th floor of the Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale-New Haven. Four, specially-painted white beams were signed by Yale-New Haven Hospital (YNHH) employees, construction workers, and students from Meadowside Elementary School in Milford in support of a classmate who has been treated for cancer at YNHH. Six-year-old Nick Branca of Milford, who was diagnosed with a rare form of brain cancer when he was 3, was at the topping off ceremony with his parents. Nick, wearing a hard hat, gave the signal to the construction workers to raise the girders, including "his" beam.
"These ceremonial beams, along with all of the steel already in place, symbolize in words and deeds that the hope of a new day is drawing closer," said Marna P. Borgstrom, president and CEO, Yale-New Haven Hospital. "The topping off is a major step closer to opening the Smilow Cancer Hospital - a facility we believe will become one of the top cancer treatment centers in the nation, if not the world."
Ground was broken for the Smilow Cancer Hospital on September 6, 2006, and the building was officially named Smilow Cancer Hospital on October 31, 2007, after major donor Joel E. Smilow (Yale College '54).
The new cancer hospital will cost an estimated $467 million, and is expected to open in late 2009. The 14-story facility will contain nearly 500,000 square feet, and will include 112 inpatient beds, outpatient treatment rooms, expanded operating rooms, infusion suites, diagnostic imaging services, and a specialized women's cancer center as well as a floor each for diagnostic and therapeutic radiology.
Yale-New Haven Hospital currently offers a comprehensive array of cancer diagnosis and treatment services with Yale Cancer Center, which is southern New England's only designated Comprehensive Cancer Center - and one of only 41 in the nation.