The hospital, in Cobble Hill, a long-gentrifying Brooklyn neighborhood, has been emptied of all but a small number of patients over the last several months, as the State University of New York has tried to shut it down and doctors, unions and community groups have successfully sued to keep it open. The state has said it cannot afford to continue operating the hospital at a loss, but the unions have said it is needed by the community.
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.
State officials declined to provide the name of the developer, saying it would be disclosed at the meeting. They said the proposal had been chosen as the most viable of about half a dozen plans received by the university in recent months; none have been publicly disclosed.
Jim Walden, a lawyer for Bill de Blasio, the mayor-elect and the city’s public advocate, as well as six neighborhood and tenants’ associations that have sued to keep the hospital open, said he would have to see the details. “If this is, primarily, a real estate deal that doesn’t maintain appropriate medical services for the community, SUNY can expect my clients to fight on, ferociously, in the courts,” Mr. Walden said in an email.
Community groups have indicated that they would consider settling for an emergency room with some backup beds.
Jill Furillo, executive director of the New York State Nurses Association, said residents of public housing in nearby Red Hook needed the hospital. “Profits for real estate developers should never be put before care for patients,” she said.
Mr. de Blasio allowed himself to be arrested in July as he led a demonstration protesting the closing of the hospital, an act of civil disobedience that gave his lagging primary campaign a boost. He then sued to keep the hospital open, and was later joined by the community groups.
A group of doctors, the nurses association and 1199 SEIU, the health care workers union, have also sued to keep the hospital open.
Asked if it would be prudent to wait for Mr. de Blasio to take office before voting, Mr. McCall said the university would be open to the idea of the city running the hospital. “We would be willing to discuss the possibility of transferring the hospital to the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, which is the agency that would be responsible to the new mayor,” he said. “Perhaps if it becomes his hospital, he would find a way to keep it open. We have not been able to do so.”
The hospital currently has about 23 inpatients and between 50 and 70 people are seen in the emergency department every day, state officials said. The university continues to fund a monthly payroll of about $10.8 million dollars, including benefits, for more than 1,400 nurses, support staff and physicians.
The hospital has $500 million in liabilities, but is expected to realize less than $300 million from the sale, officials said.
