An ‘optimistic’ real estate proposal for LICH
Laura Nahmias
ALBANY—Earlier this month, Brooklyn Health Partners won the right to exclusively negotiate the purchase of troubled Long Island College Hospital by promising a $500 million investment in a full-service hospital on the site.
But the proposal also includes an ambitious plan to build 1,000 new residential housing units on the site, with 30 percent affordable, by September of 2017--a plan that insiders in the real estate industry think could push the total cost of the proposal to nearly $1 billion, and take substantially longer than the company estimates, even if the permitting process goes smoothly.
The plan would appear to require several high-rise buildings to be built at the edge of a low-density, affluent residential neighborhood in Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill, where residents often have qualms about new developments that are out of character for the neighborhood.
In an interview with Capital, Merrell Schexnydre, the C.E.O. of Brooklyn Health Partners, said the new housing development would involve “some high-rise buildings,” although he couldn’t say how tall the buildings would be.
http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/albany/2014/04/8543714/optimistic-real-estate-proposal-lich