NYU Langone Health announced plans on June 2, 2026, to build a new academic medical center in Melville, Suffolk County — a project anchored by a hospital with more than 500 private inpatient rooms that would be the first new hospital constructed on Long Island in more than 40 years.

The Manhattan-based system said it closed on the 45-acre site on May 21 for $135.5 million. The campus sits in the Town of Huntington, near the intersection of the Long Island Expressway and Route 110. Beyond the inpatient tower, NYU Langone said the medical center would include 70 emergency-department bays along with operating and procedure suites, and would house the tuition-free NYU Grossman Long Island School of Medicine.

”One of the most ambitious projects”

Alec C. Kimmelman, MD, PhD, dean and chief executive of NYU Langone Health, called it “one of the most ambitious and exciting projects ever undertaken by NYU Langone” in the system’s announcement. Kimmelman took over as dean and CEO after the 2025 departure of Robert Grossman, the longtime leader credited with turning NYU Langone into one of the country’s largest and highest-rated hospital systems.

The new hospital would be the first built on Long Island since 1980, a point NYU Langone and outside coverage emphasized as evidence of how long the region has gone without a new general-acute facility even as its population aged. Bloomberg, Becker’s Hospital Review and Crain’s New York Business each reported the project as a multibillion-dollar undertaking, though NYU Langone did not attach a public price tag to the construction itself beyond the land cost.

A push deeper into Suffolk County

NYU Langone already operates NYU Langone Hospital–Long Island in Mineola, in Nassau County, but the Melville campus pushes the system meaningfully eastward into Suffolk. That territory has long been anchored by Northwell Health, the state’s largest private employer and the dominant hospital operator across Nassau and Suffolk. Industry analysts framed the Melville plan as a direct competitive move onto Northwell’s home turf.

The project also extends NYU Langone’s tuition-free medical school onto the new campus. The Grossman Long Island School of Medicine runs an accelerated three-year MD program; the system said roughly 40% of a recent graduating class chose to remain on Long Island, a statistic it cited as evidence the school helps retain physicians in a region facing workforce shortages.

Jobs and a multiyear approval path

NYU Langone projected that construction would generate up to 8,000 union-represented building-trades jobs on Long Island, plus about 2,500 indirect jobs across the region, with thousands of permanent health-care positions once the center opens. Those figures gave the announcement an economic-development dimension that drew quick interest from local and labor officials.

The system cautioned that the campus is a multiyear project subject to state and local approvals — including New York’s certificate-of-need process, which governs whether and how hospital systems can add beds and build new facilities. NYU Langone did not announce a projected opening date.

Part of a wider hospital building wave

The Melville plan lands amid a broader round of New York hospital construction. Northwell’s Lenox Hill Hospital won City Council approval in August 2025 for a roughly $2 billion expansion and modernization on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, a tower expected to rise about 370 feet at 100 East 77th Street. Mount Sinai, separately, broke ground in 2026 on an expanded intensive-care unit at Mount Sinai Queens that it said would nearly triple that hospital’s current ICU capacity.

For Long Island, though, the NYU Langone announcement is the headline: a new full-scale academic hospital on a region that, by the system’s own framing, has not seen one open since the Carter administration.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Where will the new NYU Langone hospital be built?
On a 45-acre site in Melville, in the Town of Huntington, Suffolk County, near the intersection of the Long Island Expressway and Route 110. NYU Langone closed on the land for $135.5 million on May 21, 2026.
How big will the hospital be?
The planned academic medical center includes a hospital with more than 500 private inpatient rooms and 70 emergency-department bays, plus operating and procedure suites, according to NYU Langone.
Why is this significant?
It would be the first new hospital built on Long Island since 1980. Many Suffolk County communities face long travel times for specialized academic medical care.
How many jobs would it create?
NYU Langone says construction is expected to create up to 8,000 union-represented construction jobs, with about 2,500 additional indirect jobs across the region, plus thousands of permanent positions once open.