[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 76 (Thursday, April 30, 2026)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E396-E397]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
RECOGNIZING HARTFORD HOSPITAL'S NEW FACILITY
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HON. JOHN B. LARSON
of connecticut
in the house of representatives
Thursday, April 30, 2026
Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, during this weeks Ways and
Means Committee hearing, I had the opportunity to speak about Jeff
Flaks, President and Chief Executive officer of Hartford HealthCare.
During this hearing, I said:
``I want to note the CEO of Hartford Hospital, in my home state, Jeff
Flaks. This is a CEO who goes out in the winter and finds people that
are homeless, sleeping under bridges, etc., and brings them back to the
only place that they will have refuge and care.''
Jeff is an extraordinarily leader in the healthcare industry and I am
proud to have him working in my district. I include in the Record an
article from the Hartford Courant about Hartford Hospital's new
facility. This tower will be on the cutting edge of medicine and will
ensure that residents of Central Connecticut continue to get first rate
care. I thank the team at Hartford Healthcare for their work to make
this plan a reality.
CT Hospital's $950M Tower Is a Whopper, `Most Advanced' in Nation. What
it will Look Like and When.
(By Kenneth R. Gosselin)
A $1 billion-plus investment in Hartford Hospital over the
next decade is spurring an unprecedented building boom not
seen in the hospital's 172-year history--with its centerpiece
now coming squarely into focus: a $950 million in-patient and
surgical tower that will not only give the hospital a more
prominent place in the city's skyline but, hospital leaders
say, among hospitals across the country.
The tower, expected to open in 2031, will rise 14 stories,
double the height of the next tallest building on the 70-acre
campus.
The tower will be built on a one-acre patch now used for
valet parking near the corner of Seymour and Jefferson
streets, its half a million square feet of space so massive
that the upper floors will need to be built out over the top
of the neighboring Jefferson Building.
Construction on the tower is expected to begin next year
and will include 216 private-room patient beds--increasingly
sought for hospital stays--20 surgical areas organized around
recovery rooms and specialties by floor, all outfitted with
cutting-edge technology.
``So this is a massive investment in the future of Hartford
Hospital,'' said Jeffrey A. Flaks, president and chief
executive of Hartford HealthCare, the parent of Hartford
Hospital and seven others in Connecticut. ``And this building
will be the most advanced, most sophisticated hospital
building anywhere in the country.''
Hartford HealthCare's plans to spend more than $1 billion
over a decade at Hartford Hospital have been well-known since
at least the end of 2024, with a new, in-patient tower
considered a significant part of those plans. But the
specifics weren't disclosed until now, as financing is
falling into place.
The reshaping of the hospital's campus seeks to strike a
balance among lifting the hospital's national profile,
providing more efficiently for the health care needs of the
local community and recognizing the reality of an aging
population that needs increasingly sophisticated care.
The hospital's $1 billion-plus plan also includes other
major projects, some already in construction.
The projects include a much-needed expansion of the
hospital's emergency department; a Hartford HealthCare-Go
Health urgent care center with more services than is typical;
and a 1,600-space parking garage that is part of a larger
``arrival center'' with a restaurant and conference space for
up to 500.
The hospital also intends to launch the redevelopment of
three historic structures at the northeast corner of
Washington and Jefferson streets later this year. The project
will anchor a growing presence of community clinic space in
historic structures along the north side of Jefferson Street.
``This is a generational moment for us,'' Flaks said.
``This will position us for decades to come.''
Flaks comments on the details of the new tower came in an
interview with The Courant prior to a public announcement
Saturday at Hartford HealthCare's annual Black & Red Gala
fundraiser, the hospital's largest of the year.
The in-patient tower has been part of the hospital planning
since at least 2021 when an $80 million addition to the Bliss
Building was completed, adding critical care space.
The addition came on the heels of the 2016 opening of the
$150 million Bone & Joint Institute orthopedic center. Both
projects helped reshape not only the hospital's expanding
capabilities but were intended to project a modern image of a
destination for increasingly sophisticated health care.
In addition to new technology, the planned tower will
increase the percentage of overall private rooms from the
hospital's current 60% to about 80%, hospital officials said
The hospital now has 867 patient beds.
Flaks said the projects will be financed primarily through
bond funding supported by the corporation's endowment and
other philanthropic gifts.
`A variety of options'
The expansion and reorganization of the hospital's
emergency department comes as it annually treats about
110,000 patients, a number that is forecast to grow in the
coming years, hospital officials said.
The department already is seeing a severe space crunch,
with some patients routinely seen in hallways. According to
hospital officials, the emergency department has 108 rooms
and averages 305 patients a day.
Cheryl Ficara, the president of Hartford Hospital, said
plans call for an expansion into the adjacent Conklin
Building into space where as many as 30 beds will be set
aside for patients who are ``under observation.''
``And why that's so important is because many of the people
that come into the emergency department, probably, I would
say only 25 to 28% are admitted,'' Ficara said. ``The rest
are on observation and will be transitioning back out.'' The
exact number of beds that will be added has yet to be
determined.
The entrance to the emergency department also is getting a
makeover, with separate entrances being created for walk-in
patients and those transported by ambulance, Ficara said.
In addition, the hospital expects to open in June a
Hartford HealthCare-Go Health urgent-care clinic in the
recently-acquired former Girl Scouts of Connecticut
headquarters at the corner of Washington Street and Retreat
Avenue.
The urgent care center is seen as relieving some of the
pressure on the emergency department, giving patients another
option when they don't necessarily need emergency department
care.
The clinic, expected to open in June, will offer expanded
services such as the opportunity for blood work and more
sophisticated imaging not typically available at the
hospital's other urgent care locations. ``We're working with
the community very closely to be able to educate them on the
variety of options,'' Ficara said.
Arrival Center
The new parking garage--running the length of the south
side of Jefferson Street between Washington and Seymour
streets--will add about 1,000 new spaces to help ease a
longstanding parking crunch at the hospital.
Built in two phases on the site of a now-demolished garage
and a former gas station, it is expected to gradually open
beginning in 2027. The valet service also will be based in
the garage.
The garage also will anchor what the hospital describes as
an arrival center.
The venue also will include a restaurant on Seymour Street
and a conference center located near the corner Washington
and Jefferson streets.
The conference center is expected to accommodate up to 500
people--a size that has the potential to attract national
meetings and bring more visitors to the city of Hartford,
Flaks said.
``So this is all part of that broader strategy to really
have Hartford Hospital be magnetic, to be a destination for
research, teaching, innovation, clinical discovery,'' Flaks
said. ``And it just adds another piece of the puzzle that we
need to be able to elevate and be competitive with anyone
across the country to host meetings of this scale. So we're
very excited about that.''
The parking garage will be connected to the new tower via a
skywalk that will lead to the tower's two-story lobby, the
new main entrance to the hospital.
[[Page E397]]
And as construction of the new tower starts to take shape,
two concourses--one interior, one exterior--will be built to
connect all the structures at the heart of the campus: the
new tower, the Jefferson Building, the emergency department,
the Conklin Building and the High Building--now the main
entrance.
``The internal concourse allows patients, families,
colleagues to move patients, products--everything--throughout
the buildings without the need to access any other pathway,''
Keith Grant, vice president of operations for the Hartford
region of Hartford HealthCare, said. ``It becomes the outer
spine of the building.''
An exterior concourse will overlook redesigned landscaping,
with a new ``healing garden'' the focal point. Honoring
historic properties.
Up until a few years ago, Hartford Hospital came under
intense criticism for its poor stewardship of historic
structures on its campus and allowing them to become
blighted.
The hospital met with strong opposition in 2023 from
neighborhood leaders and preservationists when it moved to
demolish a historic, yet decaying, 1920s apartment building
at the corner of Washington and Jefferson streets.
Today, plans call for the building and two neighboring
ones--primarily their facades--to be incorporated into a new
community-based clinical space. Those plans are evidence that
the hospital says respect the past while also looking to the
future.
The hospital also points to the $2 million-plus renovation
1879 Queen Anne-style house on Jefferson Street. The house,
which had fallen into disrepair, was singled out as one of
the most notable properties when the Jefferson-Seymour
National Historic District was formed in 1979.
The hospital's evolving perspective on historic structures
also was evident in reversing a plan to demolish the
historic, 1920s Hall-Wilson Laboratory in 2021. Instead, the
hospital took the unusual step of converting the interior of
the brownstone structure into an electrical substation plant,
in a $23 million project.
While most efforts at incorporating historic structures
into a modern hospital campus have been focused along
Jefferson, Ficara, Hartford Hospital's president, said the
hospital also is now looking along Retreat Avenue.
``All the buildings that we own that are historic and need
work, if you will, it's a partnership of making sure from a
historic perspective, that we honor them,'' Ficara said.
``But, at the same time, renovate them and then use them for
today's day and age, and I think that is very possible.''
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