The New York Times reports today, that SUNY will present a plan to sell Long Island College Hospital to a developer who would turn much of the property into condos. This is not a shock to anyone reading between the lines in the long SaveLICH drama.
Last month, SUNY Board Chairman Carl McCall told attendees at a trustees meeting that a condo option was not on the table. Moments later he told NY1 that condos were a possibility.
NYT: SUNY officials said on Monday that a developer has offered to buy the property and lease much of the block that now houses the hospital back to one or more health care providers, who would run an urgent care center, a fitness center and other non-hospital facilities. The facilities would not receive ambulance calls. Other nearby buildings — the hospital comprises about 20 structures — would be turned into condominiums.
“We’re doing exactly what the community has asked us to do all along, and that is to find us another operator,” said H. Carl McCall, chairman of the university trustees and a former state comptroller, on Monday. Mr. McCall acknowledged that the plan fell short of maintaining a full-service hospital, as the unions wanted, but said no viable plan had been offered.
Mr. McCall said the plan would be presented to SUNY’s Board of Trustees at their meeting in Manhattan on Tuesday. The trustees are expected to vote on whether to proceed to negotiate with the developer.
The Brooklyn Eagle adds that many public officials including Council Member Stephen Levin, Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez, Borough President Marty Markowitz, Senator Daniel Squadron, Assemblywoman Joan Millman, and Council Member Brad Lander have asked for SUNY to release all of the responses it received in the RFP process in the transfer of ownership of LICH.
