Completed Projects
SUNY Upstate transforms vacant downtown building into expanded child care center
SYRACUSE, N.Y.— SUNY Upstate Medical University officially opened and dedicated the long-vacant former Four Winds building during ceremonies Oct. 21 as home to its newly expanded child care center and future location of various university offices.
The building is named in honor of Sarah Loguen, M.D., who became one of the nation's first African-American women physicians when she earned her medical degree in 1876 from what is today the SUNY Upstate College of Medicine.
The Four Winds building has been shuttered and vacant since 2004. SUNY Upstate purchased the building in 2007 and announced plans to use the facility to expand its child care center and extend some campus operations into downtown Syracuse. The acquisition of the building was part of the SUNY Upstate Initiative announced by SUNY Upstate President David R. Smith, M.D., last September.
Now located in the Dr. Sarah Loguen Center, the Upstate Child Care Center can accommodate 134 children, more than double the amount in its old facility, located at 618 Irving Ave., Syracuse. The child care center features 10 classrooms, three indoor gross motor rooms, a large outdoor courtyard designed as a natural playscape, a large pantry for meal preparations and a multi-purpose room for dramaatic play or other learning projects.
The Upstate Child Care Center is accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). It opened in 1970 and is recognized as one of the oldest employer-sponsored child care centers in the United States. While it serves mainly SUNY Upstate families, the center operates separately of the university with its own board of directors.
New 1,500-space parking garage opens
SYRACUSE, N.Y.— SUNY Upstate Medical University opens its newest parking garage—Garage West—Sept. 2, two months ahead of schedule.
The opening of the $31 million, 1,500-space garage will enable many of the 2,000 employees who have been parking in various off-campus locations, such as Alliance Bank Stadium and the Syracuse Housing Authority since May 2007, to receive on-campus parking assignments. The university provided the more than 1,000 employees who parked at Alliance Bank Stadium and the Syracuse Housing Authority with free parking and shuttle service to campus. Others displaced by the garage construction were given spaces in the Parking Garage East or in existing university off-campus lots.
"We are extremely grateful to our employees for their support during this time when we were upgrading our parking facilities," said Eric Smith, SUNY Upstate assistant vice president for finance. "Now that we have our new parking garage open, we hope to accommodate as many employees as possible in this facility."
Smith said the sooner-than-anticipated garage opening will enable the university to bring employees back to campus to park before winter. "Our hope was that we would have the work completed and all the employee parking matters settled before the snow flies," he said. "We did better than that."
Smith acknowledged the hard work of contractors and tradesman involved in the project. "Everyone did a great job in keeping this project on track," he said.
One element of the project that remains under construction is the elevated walkway over Sarah Loguen Street that connects Parking Garage West with Parking Garage East. The walkway will enable employees who park their cars in Parking Garage West to walk to the second floor hospital lobby without going outdoors. The walkway is expected to be open by the end of October.
Parking Garage West is the second parking facility to open on SUNY Upstate campus in three years. The 1,200 space Parking Garage East opened in March 2007 to accommodate patients, visitors and employees. That represents a nearly $55 million investment in campus parking facilities.
In addition to the new parking facilities, SUNY Upstate continues to look at ways of making the commute to campus more economically and energy efficient.
"Our employees have asked us to explore various options related to parking and we have looked at some of their suggestions and making them work," Smith said.
SUNY Upstate employees will be able to take part in a program call NYS Rides, which allows employees to pay for work-related transportation expenses on a pre-tax dollar basis.
The university has developed a carpool program that will assist employees in finding co-workers who might live nearby to join a carpool. By participating in the program, employees would see a savings in their monthly parking fees and other transportation costs.
The opening of the Parking Garage West will also result in the avoidance of on-time costs relating to temporary lease agreements with Alliance Bank Stadium and the Syracuse Housing Authority and shuttle and security services to these lots.
The university still maintains two off-campus parking lots for employees and students that are served by campus shuttle buses. SUNY Upstate employees and students pay a month parking rate.
SUNY Upstate Medical University is the region's largest employer with nearly 7,000 employees from all across the Central New York.
New campus lighting gets installed
More than 50 new lamp posts are being installed throughout the SUNY Upstate campus as part of the campus's lighting enhancement plan. The lights will illuminate much of campus. Additionally, banners identifying the SUNY Upstate campus will be placed on the lamp posts.
First new classroom space in 30 years opens at SUNY Upstate Medical University
Key feature of $10-million building is clinical skills teaching center that will aid in teaching medical students and others excellent bedside manner
SYRACUSE, N.Y. — SUNY Upstate Medical University will officially open the $10-million Setnor Academic Building at a ceremony Aug. 28 on the SUNY Upstate campus.
The five-story, $10 million, 46,000 square foot building will be the first new classroom space built on the SUNY Upstate campus in nearly three decades, and it will provide one of most contemporary settings for medical education, especially the teaching of clinical skills.
The building is named for Jules '35 and Rose Setnor and Rose's brother, Stanford '42, whose $3 million lead gift has helped ensure the building's state-of-the-art design. Funding from New York state and SUNY Upstate's capital budget and other alumni contributions have supported the building's construction.
Officially known as the Rose and Jules R. Setnor, MD '35 and Stanford S. Setnor, MD '42 Academic Building, the facility will enhance available teaching space at SUNY Upstate significantly and enable the university to strengthen its curriculum in areas that require special teaching space.
A highlight of the building is the Clinical Skills Teaching Center, which includes 22 exam rooms, closed-circuit monitoring and state-of-the-art medical equipment. It is in this space that students will shape their "bedside manner" and clinical skills.
In the Clinical Skills Teaching Center, students will practice taking medical histories and performing exams on "standardized patients" or actors role-playing as patients. The meeting between physician and patient will take place just as it does in the doctor's office. The student will take a medical history and conduct a patient exam. An instructor in an adjoining room will watch the exchange between patient and physician from a video monitor. Later, the student and instructor will view the video and discuss ways to improve communications with the patient.
While the Clinical Skills Teaching Center is a highlight of the Setnor Academic Building, it is not the only significant teaching space. The building features six new classrooms, all of which can be reconfigured or divided to facilitate small group demonstrations. Classrooms will be named for faculty members who have been recognized for their outstanding teaching by students. They are: Robert Rohner, M.D. (Pathology); Frederick B. Parker, M.D. (Surgery); Elinor Spring-Mills, Ph.D. (Cell and Developmental Biology); Maxwell Mozell, Ph.D. (College of Graduate Studies); Irwin Weiner M.D. (Pharmacology).
Conference and meeting room space, an office suite for faculty and the Medical Alumni Office round out the building design. The alumni office space will be significant in that it will serve as a gathering place for alumni visiting campus. The alumni office formerly was located in the Campus Activities Building.
The building, located on the northside of Weiskotten Hall, will be connected to Weiskotten Hall by a glass atrium that will be conducive to informal study groups. Holt Architects PC of Ithaca is the building designer.
The Setnors: Benefactors enhancing the quality of medical education
The Setnors connection to SUNY Upstate comes by way of Syracuse University. Both Jules Setnor and Stanford Setnor earned medical degrees from Syracuse University's Medical College in 1935 and 1942, respectively. Syracuse University's Medical College became affiliated with the State University of New York in 1950. Rose Setnor, who earned a degree from SU in 1933, married Jules Setnor at the end of his second year in medical school.
The gift to SUNY Upstate is the second significant gift the Setnors have given to area educational institutions. In 1997, the Setnors made a gift to Syracuse University to support scholarships for undergraduate students in the School of Music, which now bears their name.
Project: Parking Garage
Price Tag: $18. 5 million
Timetable: First quarter 2004 to first quarter 2005
Detail: To be built on C-Lot (located between Elizabeth Blackwell and Sarah Loguen streets), the new parking garage will stand five stories and accommodate 1,250 cars, which is roughly four times the amount of spaces currently available in C Lot.
Special considerations: C-Lot closed Jan.10. All patients and visitors are directed to park in the East Adams Street parking garage.
Project: University Hospital Lobby and Main Entrance
Price Tag: $3.9 million
Timetable: Second quarter 2004 to third quarter 2005
Detail: New lobby will be two stories with open airy environment to accommodate more seating. Revolving doors and an expanded entrance overhang will also be featured. The highlight of the lobby will be the glass enclosed footbridge over E. Adams Street to take patients and from the hospital lobby to the parking garage. Patients will enter on the second floor and ascend staircase to lobby and patient information.
Special considerations: In order to renovate of the lobby and main entrance, both will close probably in late summer for approximately eight to 12 months. During this time, patients, visitors and employees will enter through the outpatient entrance, located to the right of the main entrance near the Gamma Knife facility.
Admitting, patient information and the gift shop will all be relocated to this outpatient entrance. A temporary awning/overhang will be erected to protect people from the weather at this entrance.
Project: Pharmacy, Sterile Processing Service
Price Tag: $6.9 million
Timetable: First quarter 2004 to second quarter 2005
Details: The pharmacy at Upstate Medical University needs to be updated to meet the current standards of care. The new facility will improve all areas of pharmacy operations from drug storage to drug preparation, as well as create more efficient use of space. In addition new heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems will be installed.
The new pharmacy will be located in between the north wing and the east wing of University Hospital in the notch on the third floor. It will be built above the hospital's rehab center and extend over the handicapped parking area off Adams Street.
This project represents the first major renovation of the pharmacy since the hospital opened in 1965.
The Sterile Processing Service Renovation
The Sterile Processing Service Renovation project, which calls for the redesign of the current facility, will centralize and modernize the hospital's decontamination and sterilization functions and provide adequate and efficiently designed space for decontamination, assembly and sterilization of sterile goods and equipment. The renovation of the current sterile process service is also expected to improve efficiency and lower costs.
Highlights of the project include the purchase of an additional washer-disinfector and an increase in the amount of sterile storage space. It will also relocate the large capacity sterilizers, now located in the hospital's basement to the central sterilization unit.
