The state selected Brooklyn Health Partners on Thursday as the winning bidder in the battle to redevelop Long Island College Hospital.
Provided everything the team says it can do is true and there are no hiccups in the hospital operator accreditation process or the handoff with the State University of New York, the group will maintain a small hospital on the site while it builds a new, bigger one, along with an apartment complex.
The process to arrive at this pick was no simple auction to the highest bidder. It was the result of a system laid out by a court settlement between anti-hospital-closure activists and the state that ended a yearlong legal battle over the state’s attempts to shutter the Cobble Hill facility. Under the settlement process, plans were scored on a scale of 1-100, with points weighing medical services as two-thirds of the score, and financial commitments accounting for the rest. Proposers who did not call for a full-service hospital or un-interrupted medical services — the state plans to wash its hands of the hospital in May — got points deducted. A committee made up of Councilman Carlos Menchaca (D–Red Hook) and representatives of the nurses unions and community groups that sued the state had less than half the say in scoring the medical category and none in scoring the financial component. State appointees made up the difference.
Evaluators were not supposed to talk to each other or the public, but one apparently leaked information about the state’s alleged attempts to rig the rating by pointing out that some operators calling for full-service hospitals did not have health department certification to run a hospital last week. A second settlement ordered jurors to disregard the alleged misinformation and Brooklyn Health Partners, which is now negotiating to get a hospital operator license, won.
But activists are still wary of the state fumbling the hospital or handing it off to a politically connected developer and a lot of court orders have been violated and deadlines pushed back during the year-long journey to Thursday’s announcement, so here is the full accounting of how each of the nine redevelopment bids did. (Click here for a refresher on what each of them includes).
No. 1
Brooklyn Health PartnersScore: 64.23
Includes a full-service hospital: Yes
No.2
Peebles Corporation
Score: 62.76
Includes a full-service hospital: No
No. 3
Fortis Property Group
Score: 61.61
Includes a full-service hospital: No
No. 4
Prime Healthcare Services
Score: Includes a full-service hospital:
No. 5
Chetrit Group
Score: 49.57
Includes a full-service hospital: No
No.6
Trindade Value Partners
Score: Includes a full-service hospital:
No. 7
The Brooklyn Hospital Center
Score: Includes a full-service hospital:
No. 8
Chinese Community Accountable Care Organization/Eastern Chinese American Physician Independent Practice Association
Score: Includes a full-service hospital:
No. 9
Lana Acquisitions
Score: Includes a full-service hospital: