While hundreds of community members waited outside, a City Council subcommittee deliberated on the St. Vincent’s development project. Photo by Janice Chung.

Opponents, supporters of project testify as developers seeks upzoning previously reserved for hospital

By Alan Krawitz

Several hundred residents and community activists packed a City Council subcommittee hearing last Tuesday, March 6 in a final attempt to make their feelings known about Rudin Management Company’s plan to redevelop the former St. Vincent’s Hospital site in Greenwich Village into a residential complex and park that will also include a new health center and an elementary school.

Though nearly 100 people waited several hours in the cold outside 250 Broadway, 75 ultimately managed to testify before the City Council’s Zoning and Franchises Subcommittee, chaired by Council Member Mark Weprin.

With 200 public meetings, including 70 public hearings, behind it, one of the key issues surrounding the redevelopment of the now-abandoned St. Vincent’s Hospital, which closed in 2010 in an avalanche of nearly $1 billion in debt, is the granting of special zoning rights to a private, for-profit developer that were formerly made available to the hospital in light of its overarching public benefit.

“Special zoning considerations granted for a facility that served such a necessary public service as a hospital should never be passed along for a development that provides no such similar public service, as would essentially be done in this case,” Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, told the subcommittee.

Berman urged the Council to vote no on the proposed rezoning application, saying it could have dire consequences for future development in Greenwich Village and the city.

Speaking on the development’s benefits, Bill Rudin, CEO of Rudin Management, said that more than 1,200 new construction jobs and 400 other permanent jobs would be created.

In addition, he said, millions of dollars in new tax revenue would be generated for the city and state as a result of the project’s 450-unit condo complex, 16,500-square-foot public park, 563-seat elementary school and North Shore-LIJ-operated health center with an emergency department.

When asked by Weprin why a full-service hospital was not included in the project, Rudin responded that a full-service hospital would have been too complicated to build and gain all the necessary Department of Health (DOH) approvals.

“What we’re trying to create is a new hybrid medical facility,” said Jeff Kraut, a representative of North Shore-LIJ. Kraut maintained that the care center with emergency department would be able to provide the “same services as most community hospitals.”

Kraut added that 90 percent of all emergency room patients are treated and immediately released.

But former St. Vincent’s doctor David Kaufman was skeptical of the proposed emergency care center. He doubted the new facility would be able to treat the more than 61,000 patients that St. Vincent’s ER treated only a year before its close.

“It’s an emergency care center on steroids. That’s what Rudin is offering,” he said during his testimony. Kaufman asked the Council to reject the proposal until a new hospital is built.

Yetta Kurland, a member of the Coalition for a New Village Hospital, said, “Public health laws should have stopped this tragedy.” She said she was not condemning the developer, but did ask for additional floors to be built onto the care center.

The project also has its share of supporters, who were equally vocal. Among them were scores of union construction and other trades workers who attended the hearing to show their support for the project.

“St. Vincent’s served the city valiantly for years,” said Cora Kahn, a longtime resident of Greenwich Village, who referred to the hospital’s service going back to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911, the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s and, most recently, treating the victims of 9/11.

“The Rudin plan will bring the area some much-needed jobs…the company has a long history of public concern,” she said to some boos from the audience.

Local resident Mary Margaret Amato was also in favor, saying that the area surrounding the hospital has become derelict. “We will once again have access to a 24/7 emergency care center. I urge the Council to approve this plan.”

Another issue of concern for residents and politicians alike is the lack of an affordable housing component to the project. Rudin explained to Council Member Diana Reyna that as a result of downsizing the project from its original plan, mainly due to the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission, “an affordable component to the project wasn’t feasible.”

As part of their joint testimony, aides to Assembly Member Deborah Glick and State Sen. Tom Duane urged that the project include affordable housing. They stated that Rudin condos’ sale prices range from $1.4 million to $12.9 million, “out of reach, economically, for all but very high net worth individuals who far exceed the area’s median income,” said one aide.

Both representatives called it “unacceptable for the applicant to avoid these essential components of affordable housing, especially in such a lucrative market.”

The subcommittee did not vote following the meeting, although they are expected to vote shortly, followed by the Land Use Committee and then the full City Council.

A spokesperson for the Council said that the city’s ULURP review process mandates that all voting on the project be completed by March 28.

On Oct. 19, Community Board 2 rejected the St. Vincent’s rezoning proposal put forth by the Rudin Management Company. The official statement released by the board said that unless the concerns of the community, including height and bulk, health care delivery and affordable housing, among others, were addressed, the board would “deny each applicant.” The board further decided that “no upzoning, based upon the allowable bulk for community facilities, be granted to Applicant, and that only the allowable bulk for residential development be considered for this project at the site.”

Until it was forced to close in 2010, St. Vincent’s was Greenwich Village’s only hospital. The property is divided in three parts—the East Site, the Triangle Site and the O’Toole Building—bordering Seventh Avenue between West 13th Street and West 11th Street. Rudin Management, run by one of the oldest real estate families in New York, bought the hospital earlier this year for $260 million and have proposed a redevelopment plan to revamp the site.

Under the proposed plan, the site would be developed as a luxury residential complex, a health care center, a two-bed hospital and emergency center, a 564-seat elementary school and a 15,000-square-foot park. The residential complex would comprise seven buildings and five townhouses for a total of 450 housing units.

Although the Rudins plan includes a health care center, the Coalition for a New Village Hospital claims this facility will not be a full-service hospital. “It is just a Duane Reade on stretchers,” wrote Barbara Reuther, 76, a member of the coalition and a resident of the Greenwich Village since 1956, in an email. The Coalition has submitted a petition with 3,500 signatures to the New York City Planning Commission to oppose the proposed plans.

The Coalition for a New Village Hospital, an umbrella organization with around 8,000 members is demanding a full-service, 24-hour acute care, community-based hospital with a Level I trauma emergency center.

Residents are also worried about real estate prices, as new luxury condos in the market could inflate prices in the area.

“The plan ignores affordable housing. The neighborhood continues to cater to the wealthy. I have no rent control and I will not be able to afford the increased rent,” said David Alex Andrejko, a 24-year-old artist who resides in Greenwich Village.

Another group comprised of parents and parent-teacher associations, the Live and Learn Coalition, wants Rudin Management to contribute to the acquisition of 75 Morton St. for local public school space. Although Rudin has proposed a school on the property, the coalition says it would operate at full capacity as soon as it starts due to the influx of new residents in the proposed apartments.

The Queer History Alliance (QHA), a grassroots organization that supports the preservation and exhibition of New York LBGT history, wants an AIDS memorial to be built at the Triangle Site on 76 Greenwich Ave., a 26,000-square-foot open space.

In an interview before the hearing, QHA co-founder Paul Kelterborn argued that the history of St. Vincent’s, the “ground zero” of the epidemic in the 1980s, should be commemorated. The Community Board, in a resolution passed Oct. 20, supported this proposal.

Also at the hearing, however, were some groups that supported the Rudin proposal. Tammy Rivera, of the New York City District Council of Carpenters, said the Rudin plan will create jobs. Cheering her on were around 20 members of the Council of Carpenters.

John Gilbert, chief operating officer of Rudin Management, said the proposal would foster small businesses in the area. “We want to have a conversation with this community and we hope we can continue to have it,” Gilbert added. Rudin expects the project to create more than 500 permanent jobs—including 400 in health care.

Rudin Management is proposing a a small healthcare center and a school at the former St. Vincent’s site. Community members want a full-service hospital.
PHOTO BY ANDREW SCHWARTZ