Going… going… gone.
At an auction on Friday, October 16, both St. John’s Queens and Mary Immaculate Hospitals – shuttered earlier this year – were sold to the highest bidder.
According to Dan Andrews, spokesperson for Borough President Helen Marshall, the properties, formerly owned by Caritas, were bought by Brooklyn-based Guttman Realty for a total price of $26.625 million.
St. John’s, on Queens Boulevard, is 257,000-square-feet, with 291 garage parking spaces; Mary Immaculate, in Jamaica, is 301,499-square-feet, with two parking lots and a parking deck.
A Bankruptcy Court hearing is set for Thursday, October 22 to approve the transaction, though a manager who answered the phone at Guttman Realty told The Courier she had no knowledge of the sale.
The Caritas Board of Trustees filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in federal court on Friday, February 6, and the doors of St. John’s Queens and Mary Immaculate hospitals closed for the final time at midnight, on Saturday, February 28.
Andrews said that the Borough President would like the properties to remain as some sort of health facility, especially in light of the proliferation of H1N1.
“When hospitals close, there is a vacuum that results in a nearby overflow,” he said.
Andrews also said that published reports claim that Queens doctors are telling patients to go to Manhattan.
Citing the under-bedding of the borough, Andrews questioned, “Where would you go [for medical care]?”
