YNHH ​“Tops Off” New Neuroscience Center

High in the sky, two crewmen from CT Ironworkers Local No. 15 & 424 waited for a crane to haul in an enormous beam.

The workers started as motionless dots against the deep blue backdrop. As the beam neared, they went into action, harnessing each side and battling the wind to get the slab to click into place.

When it finally did, the external structure of the Adams Neurosciences Center at Yale New Haven Hospital was officially complete — eight years after concept, and two after groundbreaking.

That was the scene on Tuesday afternoon during a celebratory ​“topping-off” ceremony for the hospital’s new George Street neuroscience center, which is scheduled to open in 2027.

Across two colossal towers and 500,000 square feet of facilities, and in collaboration with the Yale School of Medicine, the new $838 million George Street campus will house comprehensive treatment and research units for neurodegenerative disorders, including an epilepsy center, a neuromodulation program that deploys battery-powered electrodes in the brain to relieve Parkinson’s symptoms, and a neurorestoration center complete with a Computer Assisted Rehabilitation Environment (CAREN) to help patients retrain balance and ambulatory function.

The campus’s new stroke center will also help expand the hospital system’s emergency room capacity, by providing 24/7 critical care.

Now that all the beams are in place, there’s still considerable work to be done on the site. 

Cladding and windows still need to cover big sections of the structure, and the whole 184-bed interior needs to be insulated and decorated and suited up with high-tech gear. 

But the ​“topping-off” of the structure was a milestone the hospital wanted to celebrate — with hot chocolate, a bullhorn, and a benediction delivered by the Rev. Abiamiri V. Chijieze at a news conference held in what will eventually be the hospital’s lobby.

“We see this as a transformation of this entire Saint Raphael’s Hospital campus,” said Katherine Heilpern, who was appointed president of Yale New Haven Hospital back in February of this year. ​“Because in addition to the neurosciences work, it’s also provided us an opportunity to expand the emergency department and expand care for our heart and vascular patients and really put in state-of-the-art radiologic imaging equipment.”

Besides the local transformation she sees coming, Heilpern added that the facility has big ambitions to broaden the horizons of clinical care in neurology nationally, even globally. ​“For many decades, when you speak with those who are involved in neuroscience, particularly neurodegenerative diseases, a lot of focus was on diagnosis,” she said. ​“The shift now is moving towards therapeutics and, in some instances, even cure. That was unimaginable even 10, 15 years ago. So I think this building is iconic because it’s going to represent that transformation from diagnosis to cure.”

Speaking at the conference was also Mayor Justin Elicker, who highlighted, in addition to the therapeutic advances and emergency services the hospital hopes to deliver, the facility’s economic boon for the city. The hospital had entered into a project labor agreement with the ironworkers locals, paving the way for dozens of union construction jobs. The building permits, including for two parking garages with 1,700 spaces, also gave the city a cash infusion, Elicker noted in his remarks.

“It’s a great thing for the city,” he said. ​“It not only creates a lot of construction jobs and long-term jobs for the city, but it also provides a service that our residents can benefit from. Having the hospital and the kind of expertise associated with the hospital in our backyard is just an incredible convenience. And it ties in not only with people’s individual health, but things like when we have gun violence in the city, our homicide rate is likely lower because Yale New Hospital is here and able to perform procedures that in other cities they might not have that kind of expertise.”