A local businessman paid $45 million for Dyker Heights’ ailing Victory Memorial Hospital at an auction this week.
Gabi Saadia offered the staggering sum for the soon-to-close medical center on March 31. The remainder of the hospital’s $90-million debt will be slowly paid off by Saadia, said Tim Walsh, a lawyer for Victory.
“The good news is that it’s not going to become condos,” said Bill Guarinello, chairman of the beleaguered hospital’s board. “It’s going to remain healthcare related.”
The 243-bed hospital filed for bankruptcy in 2006, and a state commission subsequently recommended that it be shuttered.
Since then, the 108-year-old hospital has laid off employees, lost its ambulances, and terminated its maternity unit — where hospital supporters state Sen. Marty Golden (R–Bay Ridge) and Councilman Vince Gentile (D–Bay Ridge) were born.
The hospital will shut its ER and end in-patient care on June 30, but “but the nursing facility will remain open [under the new owner],” said Jeremy Johnson, another lawyer for the hospital, which is on 92nd Street.
