Nine Suitors For LICH

Nine bidders have materialized for LICH.  Now, we need to carefully consider the dowry.

The State University of New York has received nine responses to the Long Island College Hospital (LICH) Request for Proposals that "meet the minimum mandatory requirements," SUNY spokesperson David Doyle announced late Friday night.

Four of the responses call for keeping LICH in operation as a full-service hospital. A fifth would build a 149,000 square foot "vanilla box" space capable of holding an ER, intensive care area and 100 beds and leasing it at a low rate to a future hospital operator. The other four proposals would incorporate walk-in urgent care centers, stand-alone ERs and other medical facilites, but not full service hospitals.

The news was music to the ears of members of a coalition who have been fighting tor a year to keep LICH open. Their court battle resulted in SUNY reissuing the RFP, this time rewritten to attract full service hospital operators to bid for LICH.

“The community groups knew there would be more full-service hospital proposals in a reformed process. The bidders had access to the same evidence we had and they concluded as we did: LICH is indeed economically viable,” said Jeff Strabone, spokesperson for the Cobble Hill Association.

The bidding teams are:

- Brooklyn Health Partners (proposing a hospital)

- Prime Healthcare (proposing a hospital)

- Trindade Value Partners (proposing a hospital)

- Chinese Community Accountable Care Organization (proposing a hospital)

- The Chetrit Group (would build space for small hospital for future operator)

- The Brooklyn Hospital Center

- Fortis Property Group

- LANA Acquisitions

- Peebles Corporation

Click through for the full story at the Brooklyn Eagle. (via mcBrooklyn, which dubs LICH a Cinderella story)