[NYguy]

http://www.brooklyneagle.com//articl...veloper-fortis

SUNY approves sale of LICH to developer Fortis




By Mary Frost
October 9, 2014

The State University of New York (SUNY) signed off on Thursday on the sale of Long Island College Hospital (LICH) in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, to Fortis Property Group for $240 million.

Fortis plans a residential development.

SUNY Board Chairman H. Carl McCall said in a statement that the deal would provide “health care services for the community” in the form of an ambulatory care center to be built by NYU Langone Medical Center, and protect SUNY and the state’s taxpayers from financial losses.

The sale, long opposed by the community and local officials, must still be approved by the state attorney general and state comptroller, and other legal considerations have yet to be fully resolved.

NYU also needs final approval from the state Department of Health; it received contingent DOH approval in June to operate a small walk-in emergency department (ED) still operating on the site of the hospital.

Earlier this month, NYU said it would take over the operation of the ED, currently operated by SUNY, within two business days following regulatory approvals.

Jeff Strabone, spokesperson for the Cobble Hill Association, one of six community groups fighting the sale, said in a statement, “Governor Cuomo has decided to sell a hospital for condos without a single assessment of community health needs. No process, not even a bogus one, was ever undertaken to show whether or not booming South Brooklyn needs more or less hospital health care. At the start of 2013, LICH's beds were over 90 percent occupied. Red Hook remains a Health Professional Shortage Area under federal HHS guidelines. None of that matters to a governor intent on rewarding his friends with a waterfront development deal. People will die because of this deal. Their deaths will be due to the hubris of one man: Andrew Cuomo.”