A New York developer and a Long Island health care provider have announced a deal to turn the historic St. Vincent's Hospital into a walk-in emergency facility and hundreds of luxury condominium apartments.
Rudin Management said Thursday it will spend $260 million to cover some of St. Vincent's debts. Officials from the hospital group late last year asked a United States Bankruptcy Court to approve the firm's hiring.
The new facility operated by the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System is to open by 2013.
Health-care activists say the new walk-in facility leaves Manhattan's Lower West Side without a trauma center. A group of community leaders have called a meeting this week to denounce the development plans.
The city's last Catholic-affiliated hospital filed for bankruptcy before closing in April, citing a debt topping $1 billion dollars.
St. Vincent's opened in 1849 to treat cholera patients and other poor New Yorkers. The hospital later pioneered AIDS treatments, while serving as a top-level trauma center.
In August of 2010, former employees of St. Vincent's filed a lawsuit alleging hospital executives mismanaged funds and contributed to the hospital's demise. The suit sited a $278,000 golf outing and $104 million on other, unspecified expenses.
