Greenpoint Hospital: Three Years and Still Waiting

At Tuesday’s Community Board 1 meeting, the Greenpoint Renaissance Enterprise Corporation (GREC), a 28-year-old coalition of community groups dedicated to revitalizing the abandoned Greenpoint Hospital site formally asked the board for support, in the form of an official letter to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD). The desired letter would essentially function to urge HPD to grant site control to GREC or any other community organization that responded to the Request for Proposals (RFP) HPD issued nearly three years ago for the site.

The Greenpoint Hospital, a massive seven-tower abandoned hospital site in the heart of Greenpoint/Williamsburg, has become one of the neighborhood’s biggest struggles and disappointments. The hospital closed its doors for good in 1982 due to financial struggle, and shortly thereafter a GREC was formed in an attempt to take hold of the site and turn it into housing for senior citizens. Now, 28 years later, the site still stands empty, and the community is still waiting for results.

“This has been the longest RFP in the history of New York and we need the Community Board get this RFP settled so we can move on. It’s been 28 years, and we’ve had many accomplishments along the way. We’ve won some buildings, developed some of the local medical centers and community parks, created a homeless task force in the city of NY,” said Jan Peterson, community organizer and founder of GREC. “It’s always been a vision of many groups that have been supporting this plan for a long time and we need the board to go on the record supporting our plan, and write to HPD and Mayor Bloomberg asking why. We want them to act as quickly here as they want to in the upscale area of the waterfront.”

Three years ago the Department of Housing Preservation and Development put out an RFP—Request for Proposals—with reference to the Greenpoint Hospital. After the RFP was issued, GREC—which is comprised of St. Nick’s, Neighborhood Women, the Conselyea Block Association, the Withers Street Block Association and the Cooper Park Tenant Association—submitted a plan. The GREC proposal includes 90 units of housing for senior citizens and 175-200 units of mixed-income housing, as well as the preservation of the former nurses’ residential units. In addition, the plan establishes a center for senior services—a “nursing home without walls”—offering the elderly comprehensive inpatient and outpatient medical care. The original proposal included the creation of a new nursing home equipped primarily with units of housing earmarked for senior citizens—though the plan was derailed when the city issued a moratorium on the construction of any new nursing homes.

The RFP was initially drawn up by the city as part of the 2005 Williamsburg-Greenpoint rezoning. The city committed to fund the creation of 1,800 units of affordable housing on city-owned sites within Community Board 1 like the Greenpoint Hospital Campus. To date, only 16 units have been built while other projects within CB 1 requiring city funding have proceeded forward.

Despite the delay, last December St. Nicholas NPC received a $500,000 private donation from the Von Damm Family Foundation, to be earmarked for the development of Greenpoint Hospital.

According to HPD, the economy has played a crucial role in the Greenpoint Hospital hold-up: After the recession went into full swing, HPD requested updated proposals from all interested parties that reflect the economic downturn.

“The realities of economic climate and housing market are very different today than they were when the RFP was originally issued, and accordingly we have asked the respondents to submit a revised financial analysis which we are currently reviewing,” said Eric Bederman, a representative from HPD. “We presently anticipate designating a developer by the end of March.”

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