Valley Health unveils opening date for $800M Paramus hospital

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The long-awaited new Valley Hospital in Paramus officially has an opening date: April 14, 2024. 

The state-of-the-art, acute-care hospital on Winters Avenue will feature 370 private patient rooms and be the centerpiece of a 40-acre campus. The site also includes Valley’s medical office building, located at 140 E. Ridgewood Ave., and the Robert & Audrey Luckow Pavilion, which houses Valley-Mount Sinai Comprehensive Cancer Care, The George R. Jaqua Same Day Services Center, a full-service retail pharmacy and more, the health care provider said in a July 6 announcement. 

Plans to move The Valley Hospital from its longtime home in Ridgewood were announced in January 2017, and officials broke ground on the new site in November 2019. Recent estimates put the price tag of the new facility at approximately $800 million. 

In 2018, the hospital received two sizable donations for the project: $20 million from an anonymous source and $15 million from The Bolger Foundation.

“The ‘New’ Valley Hospital will combine Valley’s exceptional level of care and dedicated staff with the latest innovations and advancements in health care,” CEO and President Audrey Meyers said in 2017 when plans were unveiled. 

The 875,000-square-foot facility also will include: 

• Single-patient rooms, rather than traditional shared spaces; 
• An expanded Emergency Department located next to diagnostic imaging and near surgical and interventional services, which minimizes travel for patients;  
• A sustainable design (more than 30% of the 40-acre campus will feature open green space, such as gardens, lawns and walking paths. The new facility also incorporates energy efficiency, space utilization and the use of natural light); 
• A “smart hospital” design using state-of-the-art technologies, such as artificial intelligence, smart beds and Real-Time Location Systems (RTLS). 

In a May 12 video, Joseph Lorino, vice president of facilities management for The Valley Hospital, revealed more updates about the new building. Lorino oversees all the design, construction, operations and maintenance of Valley’s sites, including the new Paramus facility. 

He said that although the hospital will be ready to open this winter, officials decided to wait until spring to move patients to avoid opening amid winter weather or during the height of flu season. 

Lorino also highlighted the green spaces surrounding the hospital and pointed out features such as a covered porte cochère – or car port – where patients can be dropped off under protection from the weather. From there, drivers can either self-park in the 1,500-square-foot parking structure or have their vehicle valeted for free. 

He noted that Paramus requires 20% of the property to be green, but that Valley “went beyond that” to 30%. Lorino showed a rendering of an impressive second-floor lobby that not only looks down into the first-first floor vestibule, but also provides visitors with a sweeping view of the greenery outside through a curtain glass wall. 

Other features Lorino pointed out include: indoor and outdoor dining areas; 80 exam rooms in the new Emergency Department (a jump from 40 in the current facility), as well as a large waiting area in the department; and 75-inch screens in patients rooms, where patients can call their nurses, order food, adjust temperature, as well as see their X-ray, CT scans and more. 

He noted that a “silver lining of COVID,” was that the team was in the middle of the design stage during the pandemic, allowing them to change plans to allow “to better cope with any future pandemic,” including increasing isolation rooms and installing IV tube pass-throughs that allow staff to bring the equipment out into the hallway, providing safe distance from a COVID-positive patient if needed. 

The future of Ridgewood 

In his update, Lorino also shared plans for Valley’s Ridgewood facility, “which will remain dedicated to a broad range of health care services.” Plans in the works include repurposing the site to include ambulatory, outpatient, lab and other services. 

“Rest assured the Ridgewood campus is not going away and will remain a full, vibrant campus dedicated to health care services,” he said.