The State University of New York has issued a new request for proposals for Long Island College Hospital, its troubled hospital based in Brooklyn, according to a Brooklyn Daily Eagle report.
Interested parties have until March 19 to put in bids for LICH. The proposals will then be considered and ranked by March 26. The minimum purchase price of the LICH campus is $210 million.
Proposals that would keep LICH as a full-service hospital will be ranked higher, according to the report. Other proposals officials are looking for include a teaching hospital affiliation and/or interim financing once SUNY withdraws as the owner.
The RFP process comes one week after New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, SUNY Chairman H. Carl McCall and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a settlement on LICH. According to the deal, all pending and future litigation surrounding LICH ends, and SUNY can leave as LICH's operator by May 2014. Essentially, the slate has been cleaned to keep LICH in the Brooklyn community.
Last month, Brooklyn Hospital Center, a safety-net hospital two miles from LICH, said it would partner with a private equity firm and bid on LICH. Brooklyn Hospital Center would have bought LICH and consequently closed it as a full-service hospital. LICH would have become an urgent care center and freestanding ED, and the remainder of the property would have been converted into mixed-income housing.
LICH has been on the brink of closure for more than a year now. Last January, New York Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli released an audit that found LICH has experienced heavy financial pressures, including losses of $13 million a month, and faced immediate insolvency.
More Articles on Hospital Transactions:
UVA Medical Center to Acquire Majority Stake in Culpeper Regional
Catholic Health Partners Subsidiary, River Valley Health Partners to Merge
12 Recent Hospital Transactions and Partnerships