Brooklyn Health Partners Development Group has won the bid to operate the State University of New York's Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn, N.Y.
BHP, which is based in Manhattan and formed specifically to repurpose LICH, is comprised of healthcare, real estate and private equity professionals. Merrell Schexnydre, a real estate mogul who used to work for Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente and also leads a California real estate company, heads BHP.
According to BHP's proposal, the group will pay $250 million for the LICH campus. BHP will maintain LICH as a full-service, acute-care hospital by building a new hospital with 300 to 400 beds. In addition, the group will support a "bridge facility" with at least 150 beds to provide emergency care, surgical care and other services until the new hospital is finished. BHP will start construction on the new facility no later than two to three years after the deal closes. Quorum Health Resources, a hospital management company, will run the hospital.
The LICH campus will be transformed into the "Brooklyn Medical District," which will include the new teaching hospital, as well as medical offices, commercial space and affordable housing.
SUNY officials said they will now work with the state attorney general's office and other agencies to ensure the transaction is finalized before May 22, a court-approved exit date for LICH. BHP will also need to obtain a license to operate the hospital from the New York State Health Department.
In March, LICH received nine partnership offers from various hospitals, health systems and developers. BHP's proposal was one of four that would've kept LICH as a full-service hospital. SUNY initially issued a request for proposals for LICH in February.
The deal could potentially end a year-plus-long saga. It started in January 2013, when New York Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli released an audit that found LICH had experienced heavy financial pressures, including losses of $13 million a month, and faced immediate insolvency. LICH has faced mass layoffs and closure on multiple occasions since.
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