Nearly a year after St. Vincent’s closed, a hospital is returning to Greenwich Village, albeit a much smaller one. St. Vincent and North Shore-Long Island Jewish have just announced a deal that, along with developer Rudin Management, will place an emergency care facility within the O’Toole Building, the distinctive “overbite building” on the west side of Seventh Avenue.
North Shore-LIJ will pay $110 million to retrofit the 1966 landmark into a 160,000-square-foot facility that will also provide imaging services and 
ambulatory care for the sick and elderly. The Rudins will contribute $10 million to North Shore-LIJ to defray its costs.
“With the contribution of the O’Toole Building and land, St. Vincent’s is pleased that health care is one step closer to returning to Greenwich Village,” Mark Toney, St. Vincent’s chief restructuring officer, said in a release. “Not only are we providing substantial recovery for our creditors but we are also helping to provide a long-term health care solution for the community.”
While this deal will not restore full-service health
care to the Village, it should satisfy residents concerned about emergency medical services. Even more pleased will be the numerous preservationists and locals who wanted to save the O’Toole Building and were not thrilled with the idea of a new 300-foot hospital tower in the middle of the low-rise Village.
Yet the NIMBYs will not be totally satisfied, as Rudin now, as a result of the deal, gets to proceed with its 300-unit, FXFowle-designed luxury housing development on the old St. Vincent’s property on the east side of Seventh Avenue. The storied family firm needed to find a way to keep medical care alive on the site in order to proceed with its purchase of the old St. Vincent’s campus–the price of which has not been disclosed.
Bill Rudin reaffirmed his company’s commitment to building a school on the property, and now it will redevelop the St. Vincent’s triangle at the corner of Greenwich and Seventh into a new public park.
“For several years, my family has worked with the residents of the West Village on many issues, from ensuring that neighbors have access to 21st century health care, to making certain our residential development is respectful to the historic nature of the neighborhood, to reducing school overcrowding,” Bill Rudin said. “It is in this same vein of cooperation that we look forward to working with all stakeholders, including our elected officials and the community at large to move this exciting project forward; generating both first-rate health care and a boost to the economy of a community that was hit hard by St. Vincent’s closing.”
The hospitals are having a conference call at 10:00 a.m. today, so check back for more then.
UPDATE: See renderings of the retrofitted O’Toole Building.
UPDATE 2: The Rudins will be payins $260 million for the property, among other revelations from that conference call.
mchaban@observer.com
