ALBANY, NY—First Niagara Bank, N.A. has closed a $48 million construction loan to Albany Medical Center, 43 New Scotland Avenue.  The loan will finance a new 135,000 square foot medical office building as well as an adjacent parking garage. The project is a key element to the development of the Park South area.

“We are pleased to provide the financing for this important new project that will add to the vitality of the Albany Medical Center,” said Peter Cosgrove, senior director commercial lending and upstate New York regional president. “This is another example of our commitment to providing area businesses with lending solutions that are responsive to their needs and objectives. We are actively looking for opportunities to put our capital to work throughout the capital region."

“The collaboration with community partners like First Niagara has helped fulfill the promise of rejuvenating an area of Albany that had significantly deteriorated over so many years,” said Albany Medical Center president and CEO James Barba.  “As the construction moves forward, we look forward to a new vibrancy for the Park South area, and to having hundreds of new residents as our neighbors."

First Niagara is a leader in commercial lending, and was the recipient of several national and regional 2013 Greenwich Excellence Awards for small business and middle market banking.  The awards were for performance in categories including customer service, relationship manager performance, financial stability, accuracy of treasury operations and treasury customer service.

First Niagara employs 575 people in the Eastern New York region, and in the past four years provide more than $1.2 million in local philanthropic support. Albany Medical Center, northeastern New York's only academic health sciences center, is one of the largest private employers in the Capital Region. It incorporates the 734-bed Albany Medical Center Hospital, which offers the widest range of medical and surgical services in the region, and the Albany Medical College, which trains the next generation of doctors, scientists and other healthcare professionals, and also includes a biomedical research enterprise and the region's largest physicians practice with more than 400 doctors.