North Shore-LIJ Opens $17 Million Monter Cancer Center

LAKE SUCCESS, New York—The North Shore-Long Island Jewish (LIJ) Health System has opened its Monter Cancer Center, a $17 million, 37,000-square-foot facility that offers a spectrum of cancer services in a stunning outpatient setting, providing patients with a calming atmosphere complete with indoor gardens and skylights. "This investment eliminates any reason for patients on Long Island or in Queens to commute to Manhattan to access renowned oncologists and the latest treatment options—the best cancer care is now just a short car or bus ride away," said Michael J. Dowling, North Shore-LIJ's president and chief executive officer.

The facility was named in honor of the Long Island-based Monter Family Foundation—Gerald, Elliot, Marilyn, and Ruth Monter. The center features 32 private chemotherapy treatment bays equipped with plasma televisions (part of the Phyllis and Stanley Kreitman Chemotherapy Center), and 23 examination and consultation rooms. Other components of the center include physician offices, social work and support services, nutrition counseling, a bone marrow-stem cell transplant program, a patient education center, a cafe, and a conference room with high-tech teleconferencing abilities.

The North Shore-LIJ Health System, Lake Success, New York, recently opened the Monter Cancer Center, named in honor of the Monter Family Foundation. The Phyllis and Stanley Kreitman Chemotherapy Center features 32 treatment bays equipped with plasma televisions.

The new center houses all of the comprehensive outpatient oncology programs now based at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset. Construction of the second phase of the project, which will accommodate outpatient cancer programs now based at LIJ Medical Center, is scheduled to begin this summer and be completed in 2007.

The Monter Cancer Center anchors the North Shore-LIJ Health System's Center for Advanced Medicine, which is envisioned as a "medical mall" that eventually will occupy about 450,000 square feet of space for an array of outpatient services—an Ambulatory Surgery Center opened last year, and a Diagnostic Imaging Center is under construction and scheduled to open this summer.

The Center was designed by EwingCole, a Philadelphia-based architecture and design firm. The facility was once home to a World War II-era defense plant operated by the Sperry Gyroscope Co., and was the first headquarters of the United Nation while the current UN building was under construction in Manhattan. The design team reused the warehouse building's three 120-foot-long skylights to bring as much daylight as possible into the patient care areas. Taking advantage of the sunlight, more than 50 bamboo trees were planted in the main entrance, adding a serene, garden-like space to the facility.

In addition to the Monters and Kreitmans, other major donors to the Monter Cancer Center included Randi and Bruce Pergament.