With new owner, Norwalk Hospital promises ‘transformation’ with $220M tower project back on track

The Hour – Saturday, May 24, 2025
By Rob Ryser

NORWALK — The new owner of Norwalk Hospital will provide expertise and much-needed capital to begin working on a delayed $220 million patient bed tower — an expansion and renovation plan that represents a “transformation” for the medical center.

“The new tower and the renovation of existing space that’s a part of that … is going to modernize the space that we provide care in,” said Michelle Robertson, chief operating officer at Nuvance – the Danbury-based health care system that officially merged with New York health care giant Northwell at the start of the month.

“Northwell … is leading-edge with their construction. We will definitely benefit from their expertise,” Robertson told CT Insider recently as several hundred people gathered outside Danbury Hospital to cut the ceremonial ribbon on the $22 billion Northwell-Nuvance partnership.

“And capital, yes, absolutely. (Northwell’s) investment in Connecticut … is definitely something that is going to be important,” Robertson said. “The partnership absolutely is going to enable us to move quicker.”

Robertson was referring to Northwell’s promise to invest $1 billion in Nuvance hospitals – in Norwalk, Danbury, New Milford and Sharon in Connecticut, and three more in New York’s Hudson River Valley. The seven hospitals and scores of outpatient sites in western Connecticut formerly run by Nuvance are now part of the largest health care system in New York.

Gov. Ned Lamont was among the VIPs at a ceremony on May 15 at Danbury Hospital to tout the Northwell network, which now boasts 100,000 employees, 1,100 outpatient sites and 28 hospitals in two states.

One of the first signs of new ownership health care customers in western Connecticut will see, beyond the colorful Northwell logo on former Nuvance sites, is progress toward the twice-delayed Norwalk Hospital tower project.

“Everyone refers to it as a tower project, but it is a transformation of that campus,” Robertson told CT Insider. “What the community is going to see is our continued excellence in care, but they are also going to see more space that is dedicated to the family. Bigger rooms allow families to be comfortable … (and) to be part of the care. That’s critical. We are inclusive of our families in our patient care.”

Blueprints call for a 190,000-square-foot tower and 50,000 square feet of renovated space at the bend of Stevens Street. The tower would replace older sections of the hospital that date to 1918.

“For our medical surgical beds and our critical care beds, the care is very advanced, and we need to have the space that really matches that,” Robertson said. “To bring in some of that leading-edge technology we need bigger rooms than we needed in the past.”

Other renovations call for modernizing the hospital’s labor and delivery ward and its neonatal intensive care unit.

“We’re bringing in the latest technology for the care of those babies. And for the labor and delivery area, we’re increasing the room size, so it is more inclusive of the family,” Robertson said. “In terms of competitiveness, I think it is going to be hard (for other maternity wards) to compete with our view of the Long Island Sound.”

When will construction finally begin — and when will the new tower be completed?

It is too soon to say, except that a previously announced opening date for the addition in the winter of 2025-26 was “ambitious,” Robertson said.

The reason: Norwalk Hospital is moving services out of the proposed building zone to new locations, to assure the medical center is fully functional during demolition and construction.

One example of a service that needs to relocate is the hospital’s behavioral health unit.

“We are in the process of moving that unit into new space,: Robinson said. “It is going to be completely modernized – a new behavioral health space.”

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