By Brendan Browne
Community Board 9 asked Mayor Michael Bloomberg to help ensure that an empty lot in Woodhaven where St. Anthony’s Hospital once stood will not be sold for commercial development.
CB 9 Chairman Paul Sapienza wrote to Bloomberg earlier this month requesting that he push the Brooklyn Diocese, which owns the land at 89-15 Woodhaven Blvd., to build a senior assisted-living center on part of the seven-acre lot and lease the rest of the land to the city so it can put up a public school.
“We want to get the mayor to apply some sort of influence on (the diocese) to go ahead with the recommendation for a senior living center and a school,” said Mary Ann Carey, the district manager of Community Board 9.
“We don’t want to see anything hurt the community,” she said, adding that the community board would like to see a kindergarten through third-grade elementary school on the lot.
A spokeswoman for the mayor did not return phone calls.
Carey said commercial development is dangerous because it would boost the population in the area, further compounding problems with school overcrowding. It also could hurt the businesses nearby on Jamaica Avenue, she said.
St. Anthony’s Hospital, which opened in 1914, was demolished last year after sitting vacant for nearly three years. It initially treated tuberculosis patients, but when the lung disease became less of a problem the hospital had to alter its practices.
In 1975, it added a cancer research wing and in 1998 it began to treat drug addicts and alcoholics until it closed down in 1999, Carey said.
Before it was demolished the diocese purchased the building for its Catholic Charities, according to the community board’s letter to Bloomberg.
Margaret Keaveney, a spokeswoman for Catholic Charities, said the diocese had not made any decisions concerning the future of the land and will not make any moves before the end of the summer.
She said the lot would not be sold for commercial development and Catholic Charities hoped to use the lot for a senior assisted-living center. She did not rule out the possibility of leasing the land to the city for school construction, saying the diocese would make that decision.
In the meantime, Catholic Charities is looking for grants to help fund the construction of the senior center, she said. The center could help alleviate the shortage of senior housing in Queens.
According to a recent study conducted by U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Forest Hills), thousands of seniors in the borough and across the city sit on the waiting lists for senior housing for up to 10 years.
Reach reporter Brendan Browne by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or by phone at 229-0300, Ext. 155.
