Norwalk Hospital gets extension for expansion plans

Norwalk Hospital has two additional years to start construction on a brand-new, seven-floor patient pavilion that would be located on the southeast corner of the campus.

The Planning and Zoning Commission voted unanimously to extend the approvals for the project, which initially came before the commission in October 2022, and received a one-year extension in October 2023.

Attorney Liz Suchy, who was representing the hospital, said the main reason the new pavilion was delayed was because they had to decide what to do with the Behavioral Health Unit first.

“There was a proposal to move the behavioral unit from the hospital campus off site,” she said. “That had to be reviewed by the appropriate state agency—that went on for some time and that request was denied, so the hospital then had to reconfigure and determine where the behavioral unit would be located in the hospital campus. It took some time to do that, but that has been resolved.”

John Sterry, the vice president for planning, design, and construction for Nuvance Health, which owns Norwalk Hospital, said they’re in the middle of finishing the redesign for the site to include the behavioral health unit. 

“Our current Behavioral Health Unit is in one of the buildings that is scheduled to be demoed,” he said. “And with a behavioral health unit, it’s not easy to just relocate to any other nursing unit you have in the hospital.” 

He said the plan is to move it into the hospital’s “Dana building.” Construction on that unit would begin in January. Once that’s finished and the unit is moved, then the work on the new building can begin, ideally in January 2026, he said. 

As a part of the expansion the plan is to add a medical-surgical unit and a specialized mother and infant unit. The project also includes enhancements and renovations to the main pavilion, including relocating  labor and delivery  into an updated space, and modernizing the intensive care and progressive care units. 

Nuvance Health is also in the midst of a merger with Northwell Health, which would create a regional health system across New York and Connecticut of 28 hospitals. 

Chair Lou Schulman asked if the merger would interfere with these plans.

“No, not at all,” Sterry said.