Skanska Lands $448M Contract to Build NYC Public Health Lab

The New York City Public Health Lab at 40 W. 137th St. in Manhattan. Rendering courtesy of Skanska

Skanska has signed a contract with the New York City Economic Development Corp. to construct the city’s new state-of-the-art public health lab on the Harlem Hospital Center campus at 40 W. 137th St. for $448 million.

The city’s public health laboratory performs critical testing to detect and respond to public health emergencies including COVID-19, H1N1, Ebola, hepatitis A, Legionnaires’ disease, Zika virus and measles.

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Totaling 234,653 square feet, the 10-story building will include offices, laboratories and clinical facilities and will replace the current public health laboratory at 455 First Ave., which is outdated and in poor condition. The lower portion of the new building will include a lobby, 200-person auditorium, walk-in testing center and several support areas. The plan is to have five lab floors and five floors primarily dedicated to administrative and back-of-house functions, according to a fact sheet from the New York City Health Department.

The public health laboratory will also provide training opportunities for students and there are plans to connect with neighborhood schools to encourage careers in laboratory science. The city also plans to allow the community to use the auditorium for meetings and other events.

Skanska said the site is being prepared and graded with construction expected to begin in early summer 2022 and be completed in the second quarter of 2026. Three existing buildings are slated to be demolished to make room for the new structure, which was designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.

Skanksa U.S. Projects

The global firm is one of the leading construction and project development companies in the U.S. In May, Skanska started construction on The Eight, a 25-story, 540,000-square-foot, mixed-use office tower in downtown Bellevue, Wash. Skanska, which bought the site at the junction of N.E. 8th Street and 108th Avenue in 2018, expects to complete the project in late 2023.

Earlier this year, Skanska completed construction of the $450 million Fifth + Broadway project in Nashville, Tenn., after nearly four years. Located on the site of the former Nashville Convention Center, Fifth + Broadway is the largest single-phase, mixed-use project ever undertaken in Nashville. The components include a 386-unit apartment tower and a 24-story office building.

Other major U.S. projects include development of a new 28-story, 375,000-square-foot office building in downtown Houston that will be adjacent to the Discovery Green urban park, and the transformation of the former James A. Farley Post Office building in Manhattan into the new 225,000-square-foot Moynihan Train Hall. Skanksa was part of the project at New York’s Penn Station, which was developed through a public-private partnership.